I wrote this piece a few weeks ago in honor of a friend of ours who has since passed away. I thought I would share it here in the hopes that it would bless my readers.

I sit in stunned silence in the morning sunlight, turning the words over and over in my head – “…in order for him to be able to spend his last days with his family.”

I say “silence,” but the silence is only on my part as three tiny girls play and dance around me – true silence is rare at our house. And I say “stunned,” but I can’t honestly claim to be entirely surprised.

The man now experiencing his last days this side of eternity is someone very special to our church family and many people in it. Me and my husband don’t know him well, but our encounters with him have always impacted us. Even more have I been touched by the evident joy and praise on his part and his family’s as he has fought his battle with the scourge of cancer.

Shrieks nearby propel me to shake the tears from my eyes and go deal with a fight breaking out between two of my small girls. Often, too often, I express my frustration with them in these moments, but just now my heart is too full of the reality of how short are our years on this earth. Instead, I take them in my arms. “Let’s be kind,” I correct. “Here, can we practice speaking nicely?”

With the crisis averted, I return to my seat on the couch with a memory fresh in my mind. Only this morning I was here in this same spot, praying my morning prayers, which for months have included this for our friend – “Lord, please heal him if it is your will. But regardless, please ease his suffering and bring peace and comfort to him and his family.”

Every day I have prayed this prayer and moved on from it, but this morning I heard the Lord speak clearly to my heart, “I’m going to take him home.”

I’m not a person who claims very often to hear directly from God, and I’m always wary of the times I do, knowing that it could be just my own thoughts. I hoped, in this case, it was nothing. Then a few hours later, we got the update from our church.

“…in order for him to be able to spend his last days with his family.”

“Look, Mommy!” one tiny girl yells from the floor in front of me. She is holding a sequin-studded plush panda in the streaks of light that filter through the blinds, causing a thousand tiny lights to be cast all over the room. The ceiling, the floor, the walls, each of the girls, myself – all of it is covered in colorful points of illumination.

I enter into their joy in the moment. “Look, girls! Sparkles everywhere!” They point and giggle, and the youngest keeps toppling to the floor because she’s trying to walk with her head tilted towards the sky, wanting to view as many bright speckles as she possibly can.

Our friend is like that panda. The thought enters through my mind and settles into my heart. In the light that shines upon our world from the Son of God, he has caught it and reflected it onto so many others, casting family and friends and church and ministry in shades of a thousand sparkles. Just like the little sequin-toy, we all know that the light does not come from him, or from any of us – that our task is merely to mirror what our Father shines on us.

This, for months, is what I have been experiencing as update after update rolled in, of turns for the worse and turns for the better, of pain and of long days and nights and of a body failing. Because update after update has been so full of joy and peace, of worship to the King, who gives and takes away and who is, in all things, good. Every time I would read one of the emails to our church, every time I would hear of the troubles and tribulations our friend was going through, I could only think, That is what I want. That abiding faith that even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need not fear or taste despair – for the One who loves and cares for us is with us always.

The soul-sparkles of eternity.

As my tiny girls continue to revel in the reflections all around them, I let my heart reflect the thanksgiving I know that all who love our friend share – Thank you, Father. Thank you for the hope, for the glorious testimony of your people when they walk through the fire singing praises all the way. Thank you for the encouragement that it is not comfort or ease that we need most, but your light. And let me too be a vessel for the reflection of the joy and peace that your people know are only found in you.