You can’t plan for it. There’s no good timing. You pray it will never happen. Maybe you think you know how you’ll react, but you can’t really be sure. Until your worst fear becomes reality. Until you lose a loved one.
 
We slept in that morning, and woke rested and refreshed. We were four weeks into our eight week trip in Israel, and had just finished our first week of Modern Hebrew studies the day before. When we saw the missed calls, my breath caught in my throat. I prayed and wished hard and silently as BJ made the call. And as that worst-fear-truth unfolded, I collapsed, hyperventilating, on the cold bathroom floor. With no warning whatsoever, my nineteen-year-old baby brother, Levi, is gone to be with Jesus.
 
Shock. Horror. Disbelief. Agony. Before that moment, I had never thought about how complex grief is. Stunned, we moved about the room like robots. Too shocked even to keep crying, we wondered what to do next. What do you do when you get that call on the other side of the world? As I opened the shades to let the morning light penetrate the heavy darkness that I felt, I looked over the waking city and to the beautiful Mediterranean, sparkling in the morning light. And God spoke quietly to my aching heart.

“Look, what I have done. I bring life from the dead. I have kept my promises to Israel, and I will keep my promises to you.”

And my heart knew what it was too numb to feel. It knew peace that passes understanding. It knew hope. It knew that comfort – which doesn’t always come as a feeling. And I knew that it wasn’t by accident that we got that call in that corner apartment on the twenty-fifth floor, overlooking the bustling city of Tel Aviv, at the heart of the thriving nation in which God has proven over and over again, that He. Has conquered. Death. For everything that God allows into our lives, He has a purpose – even for this.
 
So, we made the necessary calls and got on a plane back to home. And there we said “See you later,” to one of the best friends we’ve had the blessing of knowing. We’ll know we’ll see you again, Levi. Because our God brings life from the dead.