by Jane McKee
This is an unusual month for me, as it has been every year for the past 15 years. Most people have not had to deal with hardships at such a young age as I did when I was nine in 1992. And while I am reminded often of my father, never so strongly as on two specific days of the year: March 5 and September 1. This year, my Daddy would have been 57, yet he never made it past 41 years on this Earth. March itself marks the beginning of a cycle for my family, when we remember what occurred that Summer leading to his death. It only took 5 months, but they had a lasting impact on me and one which I can never forget.
There are times when I truly understand what it means to be haunted by the ghosts of one’s past. This “haunting” in not meant to be seen in a negative light, but is the best way that I can describe what it is to live with a past like mine. Contrary to popular belief, the death of someone you love is not something you can get over, the pain never ceases, but you learn to live with the absence in the understanding that it is a part of who you are. It is like a rite of passage for friends of mine to hear the story of my father’s death. They have to be ready to hear it and to receive it for the place it holds in my life and who it has made me become.
My father has been amongst those who have gone before us—now interceding in Heaven before the Lord. There are many days in which I know he is involved with things beyond my comprehension, and it is a great blessing to me. In those times, I am reminded that there is something greater that I am called to live for beyond the daily activities of my career or personal life. The fact is, at that moment when I was nine, I saw what few have been “blessed” to see—the death of a saint who I know now is in the presence of the Lord. I witnessed the reality of life and death and became an adult that day. I have never been the same.
If I could boil down my life to a few key moments, my father’s death would always be the first one, for from that experience, all the others stem outward like ripples in a pond. It was my search for knowledge of things beyond this world that caused me to pour over the Book of Revelation when I was 10 and 11. I began to write music, I began to sense and feel the Holy Spirit in and around me in a way that I had never experienced before, and I knew that I knew that God existed—and no one could ever tell me differently! I knew and I still know exactly where my Daddy is.
The unexpected but most important result of my father’s death is the fact that not one—but three new lives—have been birthed in each of his children in connection with that moment. The third and final, my younger sister Maggie, followed John and me a year ago in April. Each of us has a unique story to tell, but they are all brought back to that moment which changed our lives forever.
My story occurred during Passover of 1999. I had up until that time played the part of the “good” Messianic girl, who knew all the right things, but had never had the experience of dying to myself. I was still first and foremost in charge of my life—I didn’t rely on the Lord, I had forgotten how since I no longer walked in my childhood innocence. The event that caused me to fall on my face before the Father was actually the death of another man, Jerry Thomas, who worked with my stepfather, Mark Huey, at the time. Once again, I was reminded of the reality of life and death, yet this time, I was no longer walking in the certainty that I would see my own Daddy again.
After a day of being hounded by the Spirit, I fell on my face before the Lord and repented of who I had become. I who knew, who had seen, who was supposed to understand, yet who let her own pride stand in the way of everything else. It took 3-4 hours of me on my face crying out to the Father to come to the end of myself. And, as I’ve stated in a previous blog, my final act was to sing to the Lord from my soul in worship. Once again, I have never been the same since.
The fact is, while I have said that God has used my Daddy’s death to spur each of my siblings’ salvation experiences, they have all been unique to our circumstances and personalities. There has been but one commonality between them—our late father—and what his going before us has represented to our family. We have been given a new life, and I, for one, am quite grateful for the many adventures we have embarked on together. It has been a challenge, quite trying at times, but each experience I would not trade—even for a more “normal” childhood.
It is the hope for the future which has been the greatest gift I and my family have been given. It is the knowledge that there is light at the end of the darkness, and that when we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4) we will be upheld by His right hand. I have seen it, have experienced it, and I believe it. I have the hope that the Lord will take care of me each day no matter what circumstances may occur. I have the knowledge in what He has done and will continue to do. It is the promise He has made and fulfills each day.
We are called to always be ready to give an account of the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15). Here is mine, but this is more than hope, it is an assurance—that I will see my Daddy again one day when it is my turn to be promoted to Heaven. But in the meantime, it is also my hope that I live up to the example he set in my daily life, that I would lead a life in ministry to others, and that I would never cease to expound upon the miracles I have seen as a result of my walk with the Father. For “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). As we understand that Scripture to be the best explanation of what faith is, I believe the knowledge of this lies in the hope in which we live and profess to others. For without this, we cease to be the light that the world so desperately needs to see through us!
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