Ellie Holcomb Instagram – I’m gonna start off today by saying how grateful I am to have known the light of Mandisa . I found out she passed while I was on Instagram live this morning and talked about the kind and expansive soul she was. It hurts to lose a light like that . It just does , I took a moment to cry , to thank God for Mandisa and for the hope of heaven, and the most natural thing to do to me was to keep singing scripture, to keep holding onto the light and the hope laced throughout the Bible. Thanks for holding onto hope with me. Sandra sang last night , “If it’s not ok, it’s not the end.” It’s never ok to lose someone, especially when they are far too young, so I am holding onto the hope that one day every tear will be wiped away from every eye and every sad thing will come untrue . Until that day, I’m gonna keep trying to tuck truth and light in my heart and invite you to do the same, because it’s real dark down here, but the light is always stronger. I think a way to honor Mandisa in my mind is to hold onto the light and hope she always sang and shared about; so Here’s my original FWF post from today: It was 1989, and I was 8 years old when I walked into an arena full of people singing “Thy Word”. Almost every person in the place had their hands raised. Wild. Amy Grant was sitting on the front of the stage with bare feet, and this moment marked me as a kid. It wasn’t a common thing for me to see anyone raising their arms while singing about God at that point in my life, much less to see a whole arena of people doing this. I remember thinking, “Man, this song must be true. There must be something about the word of God that really is like a lamp, and if that’s the case, I want to hold onto it.” At that point, I still got scared in the dark, and I loved the idea that I could carry a light with me everywhere, if I just had God’s word to hold onto. Continue in comments…