For the Light

Week Six | Fifty-Two 2.13.21

We prayed for healing.

We pleaded for mercy.

We believed in a miracle.

We surrendered to His will-be-done.

For twenty-four days straight.

On Thursday, we received our answer. And it was not what we (hundreds and hundreds) prayed for, pleaded for, or believed in...at least on this side of Eternity. BUT, it was what we surrendered to.

Our beloved is now Home, forever. God’s perfect will has been done. 

However in my very imperfect heart, “How can this be?” keeps rolling in and out, wave after crashing wave. It feels like a really bad dream, and we’re all going to wake up tomorrow and everything will go back to “normal.”

My favorite father-in-law is going to walk through my door (unannounced:) at 7:30am with his familiar “Yello, anybody here?”

But this isn’t a bad dream, it’s our brutal reality. And there’s nothing we can do to fix it. We will wake up in the morning and the next and the next, with a gaping hole in our family. Just like so many others who have lost a loved one, whether suddenly or slowly.

Sometimes a heart can feel pressed beyond what it can humanly withstand. And yet there is a beautiful Mystery to be found in the crushing.

In Exodus 27, Moses receives instructions for the building of the Tabernacle, a sanctuary where the presence of God would dwell with His people. One of the many, many details that made this place such holy ground were lamps that would never stop burning.

“Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to keep the lamps burning continually.” ‭‭Exodus‬ ‭27:20‬

What I find so captivating is that before the lamps could burn bright, oil had to be found. And the only way to find the oil was to press the olive.

This gives a broken heart a whole lot of Hope. 

Because there’s always purpose in the press.

We didn’t get to tell our giant-of-a-rock goodbye while he was conscious, breathing freely on his own. But we sure whispered Life over him in his last moments, knowing he would be forever free, soon.

Unshakable joy. Unspeakable grief, all mingled together.

May we not be afraid. Even when we really are.

May we suffer well. Especially when it hurts like it never has before.

May we remember to shine 

for the light

of the knowledge of God’s glory,

whether we are hardly pressed or hard pressed.

Kenneth Merrill Frye, your Light will keep burning for generations to come. We miss you terribly. We didn’t get what we thought we wanted or needed. Our hearts are broken.

But we will choose faith over sight, in the One who Redeems all things. We will carry the Mystery of this hard and holy ground, with both your belly-laughs and crocodile tears. And we promise to press in and on…

for the Light.

Jesus wins.