I play a lot disc golf with my friend, Nate. Nate’s a decade younger with daughters who are now 30 months and 14 months old. Over the past few years, Nora and Mabel have accompanied a large percentage of our rounds together—first in the womb and then in a stroller. Between our throws, we take turns pushing that stroller, carrying a princess, or both. In the spring, we also dodge puddles. In the summer, we sweat and swat at gnats. Most of the year, we’re on a constant lookout for ticks.
At some point in this arrangement, my name changed from Ryan to Uncle Ryan. At first, Nora called me Uncle Ryan because that’s what her mom and dad called me in front of her. Then, at her second birthday party, something changed. Amidst all her bustling little friends, their parents, and her family, Nora found me on the floor, backed herself into my criss-cross-apple-sauce lap, and asked me to read her a book. Now, we send each other videos through her mom and dad’s phones.
So, in addition to my seventeen biological niblings, I’ve got a couple of bonus nieces. Mabel and I are still figuring each other out. Nora melts my heart, and she gets most things she asks from me. One of her unique requests has become part of every round of disc golf with her. I’ve heard it probably dozens of times; but yesterday, it stopped me in my tracks.
Nate and I are the same height with a very similar stride. Nora’s tan, little legs aren’t quite so long. By the sixth tee box on most rounds, she’s already walked as many steps as we’ll have made by the time we get back to the parking lot. That’s when her question comes.
“Uncle Ryan, can I hold you?”
I know, right? So sweet! I melt faster than a peanut butter cup on August asphalt.
She’s not asking for a hug, though. She’s asking to be carried. The hug is more of a bonus, as she wraps her tiny arms around my shoulder.
I rarely feel as strong as I do when carrying her.
Between you and me, over the 30 months of Nora’s life, I’ve needed to be carried, too. Nora was born right after I turned 40, and my forties have thrown some stout curve balls at me, my family, my church, my business, and my inner circle of friends. In my phone’s Notes app, I keep a list of things to process with my counselor during our weekly therapy sessions. That list somehow always holds roughly the same number of bullets, despite what I’d consider productive sessions.
A couple of weeks ago, I started an almost-daily practice. I start and/or finish each day in the woods, on a mountain, or at a creek. I listen to Scripture and music, audiobooks and silence. I touch the trees. I put my feet in the water. I take big breaths in and then out. I smell flowers and leaves and fruit. I camp out in my car watching lightning storms march across the valley. My soul has been looking up and out and down asking Jesus, “Can I hold you?” I slowly absorb the texture of the leaves and the bark and the river riffles. I listen to the crunch of the dirt and the songs of birds, the trickle of the stream and the crackle of thunder.
“Can I hold you?”
I can’t hold God. I can’t touch Jesus. I couldn’t tell you the color or smell or height of the Holy Spirit. I can’t even hold the trees and rocks and clouds I do see.
“Can I hold you?”
Just like Nora, I’m really asking to be held. I’m asking for my weight to be swept off my weary legs. I don’t know where I’m being carried, but I know we’re getting closer to our cars, to our snacks, to a bath & a bedtime story at home.
“Can I hold you?”
I’m not asking to feel God’s strength. I’m asking to benefit from it. I guess that’s selfish, but it’s intimate. Sometimes, I enjoy moments of lightness, of separation from the exercise that is life. Other times, Jesus tells me to walk a little bit more—just like Nate and I sometimes tell Nora. As I reach out my finger for her fingers to wrap, I coax more steps out of her tiny frame: “Let’s go find my disc. After I throw it, I’ll carry you.” And I do. Even when I’m hot or tired. Because that little girl always has my heart in her other hand.
I don’t know if it’s sacrilege to say I’ve experienced God as if he were my uncle. I know we’re supposed to see him as our father. Sometimes, he sounds like an experienced grandfather or a wise teacher or a comforting friend. For right now, though, as I strain against uncertainty, it feels really comforting to tangibly experience the details of the world he gave us, to hear the words transcribed from his life, to absorb the art of music and locomotion and sunsets. Even though Jesus knows my request is preposterous—that my mortality could never hold his infinity—he’s always close enough to hear me whisper, “Can I hold you?”
Just like I do with Nora, he doesn’t answer “Yes.” He just swoops me off my feet into the crevice of his arm—sometimes all the way up onto his shoulder. Not indefinitely. Not until I atrophy. Not all the time. Just enough to get me to the place where I can stand again, even if it’s from the same place I will soon again ask, “Can I hold you?”
