I am still looking for words for today’s service.
I sat in my bed with my neighbor Debbie and we watched the service from start to finish…I cried, I laughed, I felt Holy Spirit and cried again…for many reasons. When the service was over, I got hit hard. I fell asleep…for a long time…another rarity for me these days. I just woke up a little bit ago…and I’m still trying to pin-point what I feel.
I didn’t know Whitney. I know people who knew her and loved her, tremendously. What I have always felt is an intense connection to her, most likely because, at our core, we come from the same place. What happened yesterday at the service was what Whitney did her entire career: She brought the good news to people…She infused those songs with the Holy Ghost…She always brought the church with her. And I have to say, it saddens me a bit that it took her dying and having a service televised on CNN for people to make that connection. It has ALWAYS been clear, IMO.
As I watched the service yesterday, I felt like I had been taken back in a time capsule…back to my own youth….back to my old church in Florida…to the core, simplicity of what faith is: everything I loved about the church when I was growing up…to what it has always been in my heart regardless of what it has become in a commercialized sense. I am so proud of the Drinkard/Houston family for creating that space yesterday…for showing the world not just Whitney’s roots, but the entire generation that she sprang from. It was not about dogma, but as Whitney sang on her last album…it was about “nothing but love”.
Donnie McClurkin sang until my soul broke yesterday.
I feel ever encouraged to hold onto the simplicity of my faith…it is a peace that passes understanding…a joy that floods my soul….a river that runs deep…and never runs dry….
