And his smile will light a candle

That will burn in your heart.

This will be my final journaling from the road with Chandler. It has been a monumental journey with incredible encounters along the way, but yesterday’s three-hour meeting with Lambert Dolphin was most enlightening. In Lambert’s own words, “[Chandler] and I seem to have been given a high-bandwidth two-way channel yesterday. I have much to learn from him I know.” I merely sat back and watched. It was as if, at 21, Chandler finally found someone who understands him. Because of his learning disability, Chandler sometimes has trouble completing his sentences. With Lambert, this wasn’t an issue. He was clearly completing all of Chandler’s sentences in his mind.

“I want to pour everything I know about God and the Bible into this amazing younger brother!” writes Lambert. “To me it’s sorta like passing the torch.” Whatever comes of this, it is a huge privilege to have Lambert reaching out in this way to Chandler and though I would love to somehow facilitate this incredible mentoring opportunity, it will be Chandler’s ultimate decision where he goes with this.

A number of times Lambert remarked about Chandler’s smile (and it was ear to ear the whole time). He obviously saw what we first saw when he was a child — the smile that inspired the lyric above in a song I wrote about Chandler before he was christened. There is no doubt in my mind that Lambert Dolphin now has that candle burning in his heart.