Tonight you looked up, leaning your head way back trusting me to hold the weight, you wanted to see the stars.

“Wow!” You called out. “Wow, the stars!” And then you said, “Jesus there!”
I had a momentary lightness then. A relief of the dread that plagues me in the night when I wake up.

You said Jesus when you saw the stars. I’ve thought it too before, but never said it. Jesus being of the stars. Them a mirror of him.

To you Jesus is our hands folded in prayer. Jesus is the cartoon face on your children’s Bible. Jesus is something in the timbre of mommy’s voice as she says the name. Something, someone she doesn’t own or totally get but reveres and wants you to want.

Mommy doesn’t care if you become an engineer. I’d be just as thrilled if you are like B’s cousin’s husband, Tommy. In love with Jesus. Taking it one sober day at a time with 10 years clean under his belt, selling generators and serving the homeless every Sunday under the 6th street bridge. Tommy is massively in love with Jesus. Anything you’ve got to say about Jesus he leans in to hear. Reads the Bible at daybreak. Smiles at everyone. Gets grace.

You can be like Tommy and Mommy will lean back into a posture of trust, point up at the starts and say, Jesus!