As part of our Lenten journey, members of my church were asked to share a glimpse of our faith – our beliefs and how we live them out – centered around a Bible passage that has served as an anchor for us or inspired how we go about living this life. Asking me to pick one Bible verse that has influenced my life is like asking which of my 6 dogs throughout my life was my favorite. There are so many that have served as anchors for living at various stages of my life – high school, college, navigating life as a single person, and now as a wife.

• “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass … Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” Psalm 37:4,7
• Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Romans 5:3-4
• Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you. Psalm 143:8
• You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. And, love your neighbor as yourself. Luke 10:27
• For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10
• Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you. Psalm 25:5
• Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

I could go on and on! There are also several passages I have turned to for comfort during the darker times in my life.

• “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'” Isaiah 55:8-9
• “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” Psalm 147:3
• Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27
• “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Needless to say, picking one verse to share was difficult for me to do. Yet the one I kept turning to and the one that has followed me for as long as I can remember hearing the Word, understanding the Word, and living the Word is:

John 1: 1-7: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” 

Not only are the words beautiful, but the opening lines of the Gospel of John have also captivated my imagination since childhood – at least once I was able to spit out the mind-bending sequence of sentences! Seeing Jesus as a glorious all-encompassing light in the darkness was an easy way for me to understand his presence and guidance in my life as a child.

My earliest memories, and later in my teens, my fondest memories, are often from times in church. I grew up in the church. My parents were church planters and builders. I always knew that Jesus loved me and oh, how I loved Jesus. My Grandma delighted in telling the story of the 5-year-old me standing on my bed with that Sunday’s bulletin in hand preaching the Good News. She was certain I was going to be a pastor someday. The church helped me navigate the turbulence of adolescence and the many moves my family made to places throughout my youth – giving me a safe place to land and find a good circle of friends.

But to be honest, I believed in God and went to church because my family did – I did not know any other way. Nor did I need to know any other way. I saw my parents make their way through life with their faith as a foundation. I saw them navigate the stressors of life, troubles in marriage, and the deaths of their parents and other family members with a certainty and will to persevere that can only come from a higher power.

“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Sure, there are times when the relationship and abundant life that God offers me do not seem so apparent – when God seems very far away. Times when my life with God seems no different, no “better” than those who live theirs on their own accord – who have the “freedom” to just be and do, trusting only in what they know – themselves.  When you are in the mucky thick of it, life, real life, life lived, abundant life is hard to fathom, hard to accept, hard to imagine that it could and can be yours.

But you know – the foundation of my life has never left me; God is and always has been there – I just have to let Him into my heart and my life.  As I reflect on my faith journey, especially in the context of this Easter season, I see it as a resurrection story – over and over again. In fact, every day I die in my failings but am given a fresh chance in our Lord.

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” 

As an adult, I am quite certain clinging to these illuminating words saved my life during my darkest hours and would later give me hope in the darkness of grief. It was the light of Christ shining in the darkness of the ICU that brought me back to life at age 23, willed me to fight my inner battles and give my life back to God.

It was the light of Christ that embraced my mother on the morning of Palm Sunday three years ago and led her on her journey to her heavenly home. It was the light of Christ that embraced me and strengthened me against the fierce, cold grayness of death as we laid her to rest in a cold rain that following Good Friday, and it was the light of Christ shining through the darkness of sorrow that helped me rejoice in the promise of her resurrection that Easter Sunday and every single day since.

None of this, however, would be possible were it not for my Dad and his gift of faith to me. I don’t know where I would be today without it for it was the light of Christ that guided me safely along a tear-filled, 465-mile highway of memories as I rushed home to be with my father in his last moments just a year after my mother’s death.

I share this from a daughter’s faith-filled heart renewed by the promise of life in a new day. A promise my dad shared with me. In the days after his death, so many who knew my dad, even only in passing, remarked how happy he always was. As I poured through the photographs of his life, it was hard to find one photo where he didn’t have a robust smile on his face.

Of all the things that brought happiness to my dad’s life – the people he shared it with, his family, his grand-dogs, his colleagues, his career, his past-times – the one constant source of happiness and strength and peace – and I firmly believe the most important source of happiness and life in his last days – was his faith!

I opened his obituary with the Bible passage Proverbs 20:7 – “The godly walk with integrity – blessed are the children who follow them.” My brother and I were surely blessed! And, as I was going through his scrapbook the night before his memorial service, I found another verse – one that meant something to my dad as a 17-year-old in 1949 and one he obviously carried with him throughout his life – Proverbs 22:6, “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

I know I am blessed to follow in my dad’s walk of faith. Dad raised his kids in faith, as beloved children of God, and he entrusted his life and ours to the Lord. He encouraged us in our faith growing up. I know it brought him great concern and sadness when I, for a wayward time in my 20’s, quit going to church.  And I know how much it meant to him when I came back. To have my brother and his wife and me willingly sitting in the pew with him again on Sunday mornings in his waning years was the capstone on his spiritual mission in life.

Dad never missed church and thus neither did we. He was always raring to go on Sunday morning – much to my poor Mom’s demise. There were more than a few horn honks and terse words said as we sped to church – but Dad knew he needed church just as I do today. He needed the grace and mercy, the forgiveness and love that our Lord freely gives. As great a man as he was – as kindly and gentlemanly as he was to everyone – Dad knew he was a broken man as we are all broken people – and he knew he needed the Lord.

Every church we were a part of meant so much to him (and there were a lot of them as we moved many times when I was growing up.) The people found inside were so important to him as they are to me today. Keeping a congregation alive meant he was bringing the Lord deeper into his heart and the hearts of others. I feel the same way today. And that is why he and I have devoted so much of ourselves to the church. He never shied away from saying yes to the Lord when He called him to a ministry – be that building a church, leading a congregation, cleaning a bathroom, raising funds, teaching Sunday school, or serving as an usher. Dad served our Lord with a sense of honor, respect, and love. I am proud to follow in his example. As they say, I am a chip off the old block – like father- like daughter in every way.

My dad had a deep, abiding faith, one he nurtured through continued study, service, and sharing and I am so glad he shared his mighty faith in the Lord with me. I can only hope to be half the leader of others to the peace of Christ as he was in his quiet, humble ways. His steadfast faith is the greatest gift, aside from his love, that he could have ever shared with me.

My dad’s faith was a beacon and source of strength for him. A beacon for my life, my faith has sustained me too, through all the opportunities and challenges that have come my way.  Because of the gift of faith my dad gave me – I have faced those opportunities and challenges with a sense of strength that I know comes only from the Lord’s presence in my life. Unlike my dad, I can’t be as quiet about it as he was.

I leaned on my dad an awful lot in life – he was my source of wisdom, of political intellect, of what is fair and what is right. He was my counselor on all matters of living – and he did so with the heart of Jesus. He knew he had done his job well when he saw how deeply I was growing in my own faith.

In the last few minutes I had with Dad, we shared the words of the Lord’s Prayer, we spoke of how he let his light shine so that others could see the good works of God, and how I hoped and prayed that I may do that as well and as purely as he did.  Finally, we spoke about letting God’s perfect will be done. My dad had found the peace that surpasses our understanding – and while at the time I was not willing to let him go without a fight – I was able to – as that same peace began to wrap around me.

Being Neil Morck’s daughter was a pretty honorable position to be in and how I most often identified myself to others!  Dad prepared his children well for life – to forge ahead in our own identities accompanied all the way by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Yes, the godly do indeed walk with integrity; blessed are their children who follow them. I happen to know that the godly also walk in happiness and as my dad’s favorite daughter, I am eternally blessed and happy to walk in his footsteps too, guided out of the darkness by the shining light of Christ.

I know that not only am I Neil Morck’s daughter and a child of God but a woman who lives for God. It was the light of Christ that set me on a new course in life that would semi-culminate last summer with me becoming a Lay Pastoral Associate in my church. Now, in my spare time, I chase sunrises on my runs in the summertime and cry at sunsets whenever one paints the sky knowing that I am seeing the light of Christ.

My hope in sharing my faith story with you is that you too will know that the most amazing gift you can give or receive is that of knowing the Lord and living a life in faith. For as each of our days come to an end, it is your relationship with God and knowing His peace that will carry you through.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Happy Easter!