Chasing Sunsets

You cannot really chase a sunrise. As you move toward it, it responds in kind, and the two of you become like long-separated loved ones, hurrying toward each other until you meet in the bright embrace of a new dawn. No, if you find yourself chasing the sun… you are likely chasing a sunset.

Lately, I find myself chasing sunsets. Often. I think it began when my momma passed. I remember getting the call on my way up the mountain. I was headed to a leadership retreat when my sister phoned. “She’s going downhill fast. You decide.” I remember crying out to God on that narrow two-lane road.

“Jesus, if You want me to turn around, You have to provide a place.” I was pressed between a steep incline to my right and a raging river to my left. Rounding the next bend, I glimpsed an alcove just large enough to turn the car around. The Spirit confirmed His direction, and I raced down the hill... chasing the sun.

I think my idealistic mind assumed His leading meant we would arrive just at the right time to whisper our sweet affections and have our beautiful, cinematic moment of farewell. But the sun descended as we hit the highway, and just two hours into our frantic journey, we got the message, “Mom passed away at 9:10 pm… so drive careful…no rush.” 

I stood incredulous, staring at the words. It was surreal. I did not truly believe it. For the remainder of the 10-hour drive, I wrestled between sleeplessness and the skittering hope that she wasn’t really gone.

In truth, I am not sure what I had hoped for. We had said our goodbyes each time we had spoken over the last six months. No “I love you” or “I’m so proud of you” was left unuttered. I had been present with her as much as I was able, with the life God has called me to. I had laid in bed with her, held her hands, kissed her forehead, and reminded her what an amazing mother she had been when she expressed fear that she hadn’t done well. There were no regrets. No questions. Yet, it simply was not enough. Like the ache of reaching the horizon only to watch helplessly as the light sinks anyway, the whisper of her spirit disappeared behind the veil - out of my grasp.

I heard a pastor say once that death hurts so much because we were created for life. I believed him. I hold to that truth still. “I am the Way, the truth, and the Life,” Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). He is the life. And so I know my mother’s sun has not truly set, for she is present in eternity with THE SON! 

There are days when it feels as though someone has reached in and stripped out a strand of my emotional DNA - like there is a part of me, not gone, but inaccessible for a time. It is a pang that veterans of loss tell me never goes away; we simply learn to live altered. The beauty in my faith, however, and the metaphor God gave us in the science He created is that the sun rises again! Now living with a piece of my heart in eternity or “one foot in heaven” as my sweet friend Sara says it, I so much more appreciate the symbols of the heavens. 

The moon is an effulgent reflection of the true light we long for. The stars are a glittering indication of and drawing to all that awaits beyond. This life is the night, but the Son will dawn again. “And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5 NASB).

As I have taken to chasing sunsets, God has brought back to me a sweet memory of my mom. I was about three or four years old, and we were at the family camp we attended each year. The buildings of the camp are constructed all throughout the elevations of the land which is nestled in the Black Hills. My mom had dropped me off at the children’s class to be occupied while she and dad attended the evening service. I recall I watched as she walked the path of the red-clay hill toward the tabernacle, and I began to panic. With resolute silence, I tried to follow her. I would have succeeded too, had not a pesky, responsible, teenage helper snatched me up and returned me to the children’s building. I remember the image of my mother’s back as she ascended - unaware of my heartache - totally focused on her necessary destination.

Nearly forty years later, I can return so easily to the emotion of that tiny heart. I find myself behind the wheel of my car, often driving south and west in pursuit of the fading light, and it feels like I am seeking to follow her up the path. As I sit on whichever distant hill I can reach, my precious Savior meets me in that space - the only one who can see both her soul and mine. As we tarry there, watching the dimming light - He whispers to me of bloodlines and generations, both spiritual and physical, the tapestry of an eternal Kingdom I can neither see nor grasp… barely glimpse. Before I turn the car around and head back toward the emerging of the stars and the moon, I consider this. Just as I grew to meet her in places of womanhood and motherhood, and even climbed that very red-clay path as a mom myself, I will one day grow to ascend the hill on which she has preceded me. I think back upon missing her “sunset” and realize with assurance that we did not arrive too late. She did not need me there. She saw where she was going. She knew into Whose arms she ran. She had finished her good work on this side of eternity, and she ascended with confidence toward her eternal sunrise. And in that thought is a great joy. There is a time coming when our hearts will no longer be inaccessible to each other. And on that day, I will have no more need for chasing sunsets.