09/05/2023
Thank you Stasi ! Beautifully said ..
Don’t post on a Saturday, they say. No one will read it. Well then, this is for the few.
The end of August and the first days of September are fraught with the memory of loss for our family. Not only is there a shift in the wind, Autumn is coming, but there are too many anniversaries of loss clustered together here. My son and his wife lost their little dearly anticipated daughter four months into her pregnancy 5 years ago. Days later, one of my best friend’s treasured sons – who was my son Blaine’s best friend – and who had graced our home with his ready laughter for more than 2 decades suddenly died. 4 years later, our beloved horse Kokolo who was running in the fields in the evening, passed suddenly the next day with severe cholic.
I do not grieve as one who has no hope. I actually do not grieve for them. I grieve for those that loved them and now live with their loss – a hole in their heart is there now. It is one that Jesus is tending but also one that they will carry. They are shaped by it in unseen and deep ways. I am shaped by it.
You have been shaped by loss as well. Unique to you and deep.
Our Jesus is with us in it. He doesn’t ask us to pretend that it is not there but to invite him into the depths of the reality of pain that we might bear it together – and so that he may come to us in ways of care that minister to our hearts and draw us closer to him in ways we could not have previously imagined.
Mercy dear ones. Mercy.
The wind is changing. Let it breathe deep hope in our hearts that God goes before us. Though loss is real, healing is possible. Jesus is with us now and every moment. Hold on to him. A Great Good is coming.
