October 12, 2007

• Dull Ache

  I got one of those phone calls again this past week.  Another friend from my college days.  Another one whom I have known for years and grown up spiritually with in so many ways has passed on from this life into eternity.  Shock and sadness and anger and pain and a dull ache has cycled all through me.  It’s hard to imagine that he is gone.  Actually, I knew him in high school too.  But it wasn’t until we were in college and learning what it means to follow Jesus that I really came to know him well.  I think we ran into each other just about every other day on campus – on the Library Walk, in front of Warren Lecture Hall, in the Price Center, in the ‘basement’ of the library – and we’d always get into these deep conversations about what God was teaching us and showing us and what verses we were memorizing.   We walked through the whole confusing journey of college and ‘ministry’ and ‘fellowship’ and ‘living proof’ trying to figure out what all it was about and how to do it well.  He really was the brother I never had.  Daniel Ow was such a faithful brother.  He was caring, dependable, reliable, someone we could always count on and trust to offer a listening ear.  He was always so encouraging — really, just by his mere presence.  And now he’s in Another’s Presence.  Where he can rest from all the wrestling, where he can at last find the peace he was searching for, and the love which will fill to overflowing.  Even so, even so, I keep asking the question, why, why, why — there are so many reasons why! — but none of them seem sufficient really to answer the dull ache that gnaws at my heart.

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