Napkin 7: To God

37,000 feet. 7:00 AM.

Dawn has exploded outside the window like a resurrection. In twenty minutes we'll land, and I don't know if this journey will change my body. But I know it has already changed my soul.

Father,

For fifty years, I've talked about You without ever really talking to You. I've explained Your love without ever letting it explain itself to me. I've preached Your grace without ever letting it preach to me.

Tonight, suspended between heaven and earth like on the cross I never understood, I did something I hadn't done since I was a child:

I stopped pretending.

I stopped pretending to understand You. I stopped pretending to have You systematized. I stopped pretending that my theology could contain You.

And you know what I discovered the moment I stopped trying to define You?

I found You.

Not in my explanations about You. But in the silence between one tear and another. Not in my sermons about Your greatness. But in the trembling of my hands, writing on these napkins the last truth I have left:

I know nothing.

But You know everything about me.

Father, forgive this son who spent a lifetime telling who You were instead of asking who You wanted him to be. Who spent decades defending Your reputation instead of enjoying Your presence.

Forgive this servant who transformed Your Gospel into a system, Your grace into a doctrine, Your love into an argument to win in debates.

For fifty years, I built towers to reach You. Tonight I discover You were already here. That You weren't at the top of my theological constructions. You were sitting beside me in the darkness of my doubts.

You were in Matthew's crying when I gave him answers instead of hugs. You were in Sarah's eyes when she loved me despite my masks. You were in Williams' broken voice when I humiliated him in the name of truth.

You were in every moment I felt too small for Your expectations, and didn't understand that You had no expectations. You only had love.

Father, that night when I was seven and asked You if You really existed, You didn't give me philosophical proofs. You gave me peaceful sleep and Mom's smile when I woke up.

That was You.

That evening, when I was seventeen and doubted my faith, You didn't send me mystical visions. You let me meet Pastor Williams, who told me, "Son, even Jesus cried 'My God' on the cross. Doubts don't distance you from God. They bring you closer to His heart."

That was You.

That morning when Matthew was born, and I cried with joy without knowing why, unable to stop, unable to explain that happiness that split my chest:

That was You teaching me how You feel every time one of Your children opens their eyes to life.

But I never connected the dots. I always looked for You in explanations instead of experience. In books instead of kisses. In doctrines instead of tears.

Father, if this illness is Your way of stopping me before I completely ruin what You've built in my family and my church, then even cancer is grace.

If these months of suffering are Your way of digging in my heart spaces large enough to contain the love You've always wanted to pour in, then even pain is blessing.

Because tonight, on this plane taking me toward my body's last hope, I found my soul's first certainty:

You don't love me for what I know. You love me for who I am. You don't love me for the sermons I've preached. You love me for the son I've always been under all the masks.

You don't love me despite my mistakes. You love me through my mistakes. You don't love me when I'm strong. You love me especially when I'm broken.

And now that I am completely broken, now that I have nothing left to offer You but this naked heart and these empty hands, I discover that's exactly what You always wanted.

Not my works. But my heart. Not my theology. But my surrender. Not my certainties. But my trust that You're big enough to love me even if I don't understand You.

Father, if this plane should crash before reaching Zurich, if this should be the last letter I ever write, I want the entire universe to know this:

Jonathan Miller lived fifty years thinking he knew God and only in the last seven napkins discovered he was known by God.

And this changes everything.

It changes how I look at Matthew if I should see him again: no longer as the son I disappointed, but as the son You love through me.

It changes how I look at Sarah if I should return: no longer as the wife I must protect from my fears, but as the woman You placed in my life to teach me what it means to be loved without deserving it.

It changes how I look at the church if I should preach again: no longer as sheep to train but as children to celebrate in the love that has always surrounded them.

Father, the plane is beginning its descent, and I'm beginning the ascent toward a life that may be brief but will finally be true.

A life where I won't pretend anymore to have answers but will confess to having a Father who is the Answer to all the questions I never knew how to formulate.

Thank you for waiting fifty years for me to stop explaining You and start trusting You.

Thank you for being patient with this son who wanted to understand You instead of letting himself be transformed by You.

Thank you for this plane, for this cancer, for these napkins that brought me home to Your heart.

Now I know in part - very little, almost nothing - but You know me perfectly. And for the first time in fifty years, this is enough.

Actually, it's everything.

Your son, who stopped trying to be Your professor

EPILOGUE - 7:30 AM

Flight JB423 landed in Zurich at 7:30 AM local time. As I gather these seven dirty and ruined napkins, I know they don't just contain ink and tears. They contain the map of a journey that took me from head to heart, from answers to questions, from certainties to love.

I don't know if the clinic will be able to save my body. But I know these seven napkins have already saved my soul.

And maybe that was the only miracle I really needed.