An encouraging woman in my life died suddenly this past week. In grieving the loss of her not only in my life, but the loss in the lives of her loved ones and close friends, it brings back so many memories. My story is known because of my acquaintance with grief and loss. But as I was sitting in my friends memorial service and in talking with people this week, it made me think.
Yes, I am very familiar with grief and pain and loss…but that’s not all.
Because of deep loss and heartache I am also very familiar with God’s profound healing.
I have experienced God’s deep and transforming peace because of my experience with deep pain.
I know God’s faithfulness because I’ve known loneliness.
I have greater faith in God’s power because I have greater knowledge of my weakness.
I have felt a much deeper joy because I have felt such deep sorrow.
Grieving, in the moment, feels anything but blessing. But God’s desire is for our good…and He uses anything to bring us closer to Him or to make our relationship deeper with Him…including loss.
With Easter just a couple of weeks away, it’s a joyous reminder of God’s victory over death and sorrow and sin. I never fully grasped the significance of that until I watched the ugliness of death and the complete lack of control that we have over it. We feel the loss that death brings here on earth…but there is hope. Jesus brought that to us! Because of that we don’t just have to feel grief, but we can have joy and peace right along side it. The combination can be overwhelming at times, but that won’t always be the case. Someday in heaven, the grief and sadness and pain will be striped away, and all that will remain is the joy.
What a day that will be!
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:3-5)
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)
Beautiful Things 