“Your grandparents are here to see you,” the nurse informed me the morning after our firstborn’s birth. I sat back against the hospital bed and cuddled her tiny person in my arms.
I smiled. I’d heard the same mistake all my life. I never even knew my grandparents as they were gone before I could remember. I was the tail end of the tail.
“My parents,” I corrected automatically.
My dad and mom were both older when I was born. I’ve often wondered how they felt beginning all over again. A decade had passed since the birth of my youngest brother. Mom was 43 and Dad, 47 when I joined the family.
Every night, after my parents tucked me under the big feather tick, I prayed that God would let Mom and Dad live until I grew up. So great was my fear of becoming an orphan, that I begged God against it daily.
Perhaps I’d heard someone say something that planted the fear, maybe I just knew all my friend’s parents were much younger, or possibly I had only myself and my ever active imagination to blame, but the seed grew. It kept growing as my older brothers reached adulthood, leaving me wondering what would happen IF.
Where would I belong and to whom, IF I was left orphaned? How would I live? Where?
I wonder if the disciples sitting at the table with Jesus had a similar pit churning in their stomachs. For Jesus Himself, before His crucifixion, had become troubled, something unseen roiled like a churning river within His soul. (John 12:27)
He talked of betrayal and death. (John 13:21) He spoke about leaving. (John 13:33) And although they tried to deter Him, determination drove Him on the pathway to Jerusalem and certain persecution.
The disciples didn’t get it.
Peter asked, “Lord, where are you going?” (John 13:36 ESV)
Bewildered, Thomas protested, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (John 14:5 ESV)
Philip chimed in, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” (John 14:8 ESV)
It is on this precipice of their teetering confusion, that Jesus declared, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9 ESV)
We live in a troubling world. If we know Christ as Savior and claim His Authority and God’s Word as Truth, we walk against the flow. We make our way bumping and spinning headlong into crowds pushing in the opposite direction. We travel as strangers, foreigners, and often misunderstood.
And at times, we feel…orphaned. Alone, bereft and fatherless.
Jesus anticipated this. He knew that the disciples would feel deep agony over His death. They would be left behind and they would feel orphaned. And in the dark night, He spoke into their bewilderment and anticipated their future uncertainties.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Jesus said. (John 14:18 ESV)
It’s interesting, isn’t it, how throughout our lives we too face moments of feeling abandoned. We discover no person, success, or thing fills the deepest well of our beings. We face trials that leave us troubled, brittle, and bereft. We face seasons without friends or family. And we feel alone. Like a little child without mother or father.
And the “IFs” grow. Where would I belong and how would I live? Where would I go IF?
Jesus told them plainly, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 ESV)
The only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ.
“Let not your hearts be troubled,” He told them in those troubling moments before the cross, when Jesus faced the darkest valley of His life. He showed them the Father and promised a Helper.
That orphaned day for me did eventually come, but not until I had my own children. My father and mother went to be with Jesus. Seasons passed. Our children began families of their own. The home once bursting grew quiet. As I contemplate the future, alone looms again; inconsolable. And that old fear returns, in fact as eternity approaches, at times it grows even more desperate.
John 14, a passage and verse I’ve read many times before came up in my reading. It hugged my troubled heart with a divine hand of comfort. With layers of years behind me, and the faithfulness of my Savior throughout them, the words spoke confidence into my own easily troubled spirit.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
The waves in my soul calm. The winds cease. The warmth of His Presence surrounds me.
What a wonderful promise. Here. Now. Tomorrow. And the day after that.
Orphaned? Never. Ever.
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