Looking through the eyes of a dad who can't quit loving us

​The other day, I told you I was reading the book "Grace from the Rubble."

The book is a story about the friendship between Bud Welch, whose daughter was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing, and Bill McVeigh, whose son Timothy exploded the bomb that killed Bud's daughter, Julie. It remains one of the most horrific acts of domestic terrorism our country has ever experienced.

There's a scene in the book where Bud goes from his house in Oklahoma to Bill's house in New York. He wants to meet Bill McVeigh and tell him he doesn't blame him for his son's actions.

When he gets there, the two men go for a walk in Bill's back yard. Bill, a quiet man, asks Bud, "can you cry?"

Bud quietly tells him, "Yeah, Bill, I can."

Bill confides in Bud that for 3 years he's tried to cry - but can't. He said, "I've wanted to cry. I've had a lot to cry about. I've tried to cry. I just can't."

A short time later, the two men are sitting inside Bill's house at a small dining room table. Bud notices a picture on the wall behind where Bill is sitting. He assumes it's a picture of Timothy McVeigh - the man who killed his daughter.

Bud keeps glancing at the picture until he becomes aware that Bill sees him looking. Bud felt bad about it. He knew he had to say something, so he said, "God, what a good-looking kid."

With those words, Bill bowed his head down. After some time, he looked up - and said, "That's Timmy's graduation photo."

As he said those words, Bill cried.

A couple of things about that scene moved me to my own tears.

First, the compassion of this man who'd lost his daughter. Here he boldly sits at this table, a thousand miles or so from home. In the middle of an unimaginably challenging moment, he found the most beautiful gift to offer a grieving dad. In the midst of his own overwhelming pain, Bud Welch could feel the pain of another father. And one dad delivered another dad the healing gift of tears.

There is something about the gift of tears.

Second, I thought about God. I thought, if God had been sitting across that table from Bill Welch, looking up at that photo, I wonder what he would have said? It makes you wonder, doesn't it?

I'd like to think he would have said, "God, what a good-looking kid."

I've never blown up a building, or killed innocent people. But still, I've hurt a lot of people in my life. So it's quite tempting to want God to feel such disdain for Timothy McVeigh that he looks at my life and says, you've done some stuff, but you haven't done THAT kind of stuff, so we're good.

But to me, it's more comforting, there's more beauty in knowing, that God looks through all of our stuff, he sees through it and into these creatures he purposefully created, and not by ranking us according to our faults, but through the eyes of a dad who just can't quit loving us, no matter what, he says, "God, what a good-looking kid."