The Light Bearer

ORIGINAL POST DATE: 6/9/09

Today is a rather numb day. I was informed by my husband at 3:30 this afternoon that our beloved pastor and friend, Orie, had died three hours previous, after a valiant battle with pancreatic cancer.

From the moment Orie told our congregation about his illness, I have had mixed, often guilty, feelings of both dread and sadness. Our church is of the charismatic variety. We preach the fullness of the Holy Spirit and all that provides, including healings and miracles for today.

My conflict arises from the fact that I have worked for a Hospice provider for nearly six years. Disease and death, especially cancer related death, is a topic with which I am very familiar. Throughout my years with the Hospice, I have struggled between my faith, that is, what I claim to believe, and my knowledge of the facts of the death and dying process.

In the realm of my experience, death escapes no one. I have helped many good Christian men and women along the road to their ultimate death. Some of them had the same faith basis as my own, filled with the Holy Ghost, claiming and proclaiming their healing to the very end. I have seen a bereft, Godly husband lose his beloved 50 year old wife to colon cancer. I have been at the dying bedside of a Baptist preacher who lived his life as he taught, in love and generosity to everyone he met. He left behind a beautiful wife and a 14 year old daughter. I have watched the quiet, haunting agony of three young children, as they sat by the bedside of their 44 year old mother, who tried her best to be strong for them, and bestow upon them as many final words of love and wisdom that her failing body would allow. I watched her in her weakened state as she kissed them at bedtime one night, one by one, and told them how proud she was of them, and how much she loved them. She died the next day while they were in school. They had a father who did not want them, and have all since been adopted, in the same family, thank God.

And so, in these last months, this same, terrible conflict has plagued my mind ever since our pastor's announcement of his disease. We have been encouraged many times in these last weeks not to look at the circumstances in our lives from the natural perspective. We have prayed, shouted, praised, worshipped, and positively proclaimed our way through this trial, now only to be faced with the reality of today's outcome. Death has now claimed our beloved pastor.

In my natural eye, which is trained to see the signs of death clearly, I could almost count the days until my pastor would succumb to the ravages of his illness. While everyone cheered last week at the announcement that his cancer fighting cell blood levels had reached nearly normal, I saw the signs that read that his body had merely stopped fighting the cancer, and had chosen instead to peacefully shut down and surrender.

And now, I sit here today, like all the others in my church family, shocked, saddened, torn apart by the news of his death, but unlike the others, not surprised. Instead I am ashamed, ashamed that I have knowledge of the physical realm on which I relied throughout these months. I am ashamed that I have, admittedly, sat quietly shaking my head inside, pitying those who seemed so sure that Orie would live. While others have shouted and prayed more and more fervently for his healing during these last difficult weeks, I have only prayed that they would accept his death easily, and not suffer emotional harm from being unprepared for its eventual arrival.

There are some who would call me the worst heretic, who would call for me to repent in my heart and turn to the truth. There are even some who would say that perhaps I contributed to the demise of my pastor because of my unbelief, because of my reluctance to pray for the ultimate miracle. They need not condemn me, because I condemn myself even more. This battle has long raged within me, but until this day, I have been able to separate myself from it. At work, I could live in my "hospice world" and be safe and secure in my knowledge of all that my experience has taught me; and at church I could exercise my "faith" and proclaim that healing does exist, even for cancer, even if I have never seen it done.

Now, however, the rubber has met the road. Much like Orie admitted several times in his last months here with us, my unbelief has come to the surface, and now it must be dealt with. I am challenged to face the reality of the conflict between what I know to be in the natural, and what I claim to believe as spiritual truth.

Orie's name (loosely translated) is "light bearer". That is what he was to me. In the seven years I knew him, he allowed me to see more truth, and more unconditional love than I have ever seen revealed in the life of any man on earth. Orie loved my family, and it showed. He has prayed over me and my children many times. He visited me when I was sick, and never showed any distaste for my discouragement and lack of faith. He gave kind words, and the most honest, open prayers on my behalf. He gave me truth to keep me going when I thought that I couldn't.

Shortly after Orie announced his illness, I told him privately that I was so grateful to him for those times, when he didn't give up on me, and that I, in turn, would not give up on him. Somehow, today, I feel a great weight, because I know in my heart that I quietly broke that promise in these last months, not only once, but many, many times. I'm sorry, Orie. If you were here, I know, however, that you would forgive me, and not only forgive, but give me an encouraging hug and tell me to move on and grow forward from this moment.

So, to the light bearer who has been my earthly guide these seven years, pointing me ever toward the Father, I will miss you. I hope the glory of heaven is all that you imagined it to be, and so much more.