Death is a very sad thing that God didn’t intend to ever happen to His children.

When He designed the human soul/ spirit/ body for relationship, death wasn’t part of it.

I think that’s why it hurts so much when those we love pass away. Something inside just screams, “this feels so wrong!”

Because in many ways, it is wrong. Thankfully though, we aren’t left there. God doesn’t leave us, but He especially doesn’t leave us without hope.

Author Molly Fumia hit a bullseye in her explanation of grief. She states,

“The experience of grieving cannot be ordered or categorized, hurried or controlled, pushed aside or ignored indefinitely. It is inevitable as breathing, as change, as love. It may be postponed, but it will not be denied.”

As of December of 2017, five people we dearly loved were either suddenly taken from us or lingered in tragic last months of hospice care or home hospice.

My husband’s only and younger brother was among them. His wife is still in great sorrow and loss, and Christmas was a very special time for them.

In many families, some of those nearest and dearest have died close to the holidays like Steve’s brother did. The time is nearing the anniversary of the death of two of those very dear loved ones who suddenly… …were gone.

It takes time to want to be involved with decorating and festive gatherings again. You feel a sadness, a need to pull in, to be very quiet.

Some people get bitter and lash out or punish those around them when there have been strained or abusive relationship histories.

This is when the wisdom of using healthy boundaries or temporary distancing is important.

Emotional balances are still tender and fragile and are often not ready for much at all except for rest and simple, nurturing, fellowship or talking with a counselor or pastoral counseling ministry.

You are still not fully processing rational and irrational thoughts or feelings completely well with this grief time. (I’m sure not!) The brain is still truly in a bit of denial or disbelief.

To be at home with The LORD. What a glorious thought. But the journey there is often hard. The adjustments to face aging and death can feel like one loss after another.

The Apostle Paul understood this all too well and considered that even though his outward body was aging, his heart was being renewed each day and that the troubles that accompanied aging were merely light and momentary afflictions on the pathway to glory.

Whether you have lost a loved one, are facing death or just facing the not-so-fun process of aging, we can wrap ourselves in the verses of hope I’ll share in the last paragraph.

All that is of this earthly physical existence will be “swallowed up by life,” but the process can be hard for us to swallow, whether we are going through it, or are watching it unfold.

I truly wish I had words that could be a soothing balm for those of you who might be grieving a painful loss right now.

But I don’t even really have them for myself. My body has felt the grief too many times this year with loss. And on the peripheral horizon nearby, Steve and I have another friend tending to his wife, now in her young, final days.

This is hard. So. Very, Very Hard.

I’m foggy in my head at times, forget things and have even lost track of days as we process all of this. Steve and I have stepped waaaaay back in work as Pastoral Counselors right now.

Financially it can tighten things up a bit but spiritually and emotionally, we know we need to rethink things and fully trust God’s care and counsel for US right now.

I never have found the right words to say when a death has happened. I usually cry terribly after funerals because I know the pain of loss the family is going through.

We officiated too many funerals as Pastors to glibly say that all of them are all about the same. They absolutely are not.

But I’m not sure there are too many “right” words. Even Jesus cried at a funeral.

However, if you ARE in the foggy stages of grief, I pray that God would grant you an extra dose of faith to walk in “good courage” in the destiny of glory that awaits all of us who have been given the “Spirit as a promise.”

May God pour a fresh faith on all of us as we walk this path of life that groans as we wait for our heavenly bodies and make our way home.

“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from The LORD — for we walk by faith, not by sight — we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with The LORD,” 2 Corinthians 4 NAS.

 

In His Shadow,
~ Mary Lindow ^©

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” THE MESSENGER ” ~ Mary Lindow
www.marylindow.com
Global Prayer Rooms

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Mary Lindow has a passion for encouraging others – all generations, careers or vocations to live expressing excellence through personal integrity, healthy accountability, and wise management of talents and skills. She’s a sought after keynote, inspirational, humorous speaker and teacher across the USA and internationally in Ministers & Spiritual leaders Conferences, and training seminars for various organizations.

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