_____ Claiborn,

“When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic…” Mark 2:5 NIV

The eyes. Your eyes have always melted my heart. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately and this seems to be a way to help me process the fact that I cannot really do one single thing to make it better.

We met when you were about 5 years old. You were the first friend to invite Jordyn to their house without it being for a birthday party or other event. I remember kind of not knowing how to respond when you asked. But then I looked at your eyes. I fumbled through the answer and said she could but I told her not to go in your house. I have no idea why. I walked to your house a few minutes later and found the two of you sitting by your front door with no idea what to do with the random limitation placed on you. I just said it’s fine or something like that and off you guys went. You were pretty tight from that point on.

Your friend group was a crazy mix of beautiful young minds and personalities. You wanted to be a marine biologist. I remember wondering how in the world that idea came into being with Big Creek being the only source of marine life we have. You were always the quiet one in the group but with Jordy and Carolyn in the mix you had no chance for airtime.

You may remember your Forensics experience. You and Jordy put a skit or whatever they are called together. While I do not remember the subject matter, I remember the practice sessions. You guys were staging an argument over some topic. I thought you guys were going to come to blows. Unless it was some kind of dance off, you would have kicked her tail. She was all bark. You may not have been getting along at that moment in time and you both used it to fuel your performance. I remember being told that teachers were trying to break you guys up while you were practicing at school. Again, not sure what rating you got, but I think it was pretty darn convincing.

At Jordyn’s funeral I heard you introduce yourself to someone once as “ ____ Claiborn, but you may know me as (your actual name)”. I loved it. You can claim us any time. We will claim you as family forever.

The road you are on right now is rough. If I could take the pain I would, but it doesn’t work that way. When Jordy died everyone knew it. Not everyone has that. We had people all around us who knew everything we were going through. We had a large church family who basically took it upon themselves to surround us. We had help at every turn if we wanted it.

Not everyone feels that. But I want you to know that you have that, from us and from many others. You do. You feel alone, but you are not. I want you to know that faith can, in fact, catch you – even if you have no idea how. One name. Jesus, can handle hurt. He can handle questions. He can handle anger. He can handle desperation. Do not let anyone convince you that having faith will make problems go away or make problems easy. It does not work that way.

Faith will give you a place to put the hurt. Faith can give you a path to peace even though it is nowhere to be found yet. Jordyn has been gone a long time, we still have all of those emotions. I think that will be the case to some extent for the rest of our lives, probably yours too, to be honest. Pain is real. Loss is real. But we have found that in spite of that, peace can, in fact, also be real.

There is a story in the bible about friends who lowered a man through a roof. They knew Jesus was inside. The crowd was too big to get in, so they climbed onto the roof, tore a hole in it and lowered their friend through the roof. In Mark chapter 2, verse 5 it says “When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic…”. It was not the faith of the man on the mat, it was the faith of his friends.

____ Claiborn, we are your friends, willing to carry you if needed, willing to tear the roof off and grab the rope. If I had easy answers, I would give them to you. I don’t. But we love you so much it does literally hurt.

Rick and Mary Claiborn