Estrella was not her name. But to me that night, it was.

There is a band named, Brave Saint Saturn, that God used to pierce my soul one evening. Here’s what happened…

It was a dark evening, late in the year, when I received the call that a grandmother of one of our parishioners was dying. As associate pastor at our church, I responded. Setting aside whatever I was doing at the time, I got properly attired and jumped in my car for the 15-minute drive to the nursing home. On my way, I was listening to Brave Saint Saturn’s second album, The Light of Things Hoped For. There is a song on the album called, Estrella. It was written for a friend of the band that had a rare condition in which tumors were attacking his nervous system. Matt Estrella was deaf and was slowly going blind.

God hit me like a laser with the song, as I steered through the western Pennsylvania countryside. The chorus of Estrella reached deep within me as the Reese Roper-penned lyrics crossed my ears…

The angels wings

Will cover you tonight,

Hallelujah

Press your head

Against the breast of Christ,

Hallelujah

Those words echoed in my soul as I sat by the side of this precious grandmother. Although her name was not Estrella, I thought about how beautiful it would be as a grandmother’s first name. I felt God’s presence very near and I knew that she would be going home to Heaven very soon.

I read some scripture and prayed for her as I sat by her side. She was mostly non-responsive, but I knew that God was present with her.

Estrella, the song, was on repeat the whole way home that evening. I will always remember it as a moment in time when I felt the presence of God; from the first note of the song on my drive in until laying my head on my pillow in gratitude later that night. I am thankful for this experience and I know that there are two Estrellas in Heaven today.

Thank you, God, for this experience and thank you, Brave Saint Saturn, for sharing about Matt through your music. May God’s blessings be with you. Hallelujah.

-Randy

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Images:

Car photo by BezeVision on Unsplash

Hand photo by Bruce Tang on Unsplash