He’s going home.
The conversations have been had. The options examined and exhausted.
The end of a battle. The start of a journey back home.
Home…
This wasn’t their first good bye.
(They’ve stood where we stood now, saying farewell to others.)
We know by Your Word, this could all go away.
And yet. And yet it has not. And what then?
Are You not good when life does not go as planned?
Are You not loving when pain remains and loss takes away?
But You are here with us: Good and loving.
Our unchanging and constant Friend.
And You lead in this life, and You walk with us into the next.
So he’s going Home. And I know You’ll meet him there.
“For I know You are with me
You will always provide
Though the path may be lonely
You will stay by my side
I will rest my soul
I’ll trust in You alone
For the Lord my Shepherd
Leads me, leads me
And He is all I need
In the darkest valley
I know, I know
My Shepherd is all I need”
—
This poem below, the seeming pairs of contradictions…
But not contradictions. These opposites, these contrasts, are all around us in creation. The heavenly bodies, though they remain present, are seen more clearly in the dark.
And though You have always been here, it is in the quiet, in the dark, that You are more clearly seen, and Your comfort more closely felt.
Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.— The Valley of Vision
Quotation Mark 