The Sting of Death...

Originally posted on Aug 10, 2011

Finding it awfully difficult today to blog about something encouraging when I’ve just left a funeral for a 14 yr. old. Twice in the last few months I’ve watched a mom bury her child and in both cases — that mom was such a pillar of strength. It’s something to see really — to witness such poise, beauty, grace, and strength — could it be explained by anything other than God himself holding them up in this painful time?
I’m not a mother so I can’t imagine how hard it is to accept the reality that God gifts parents with children — but they are HIS, not ours…that He simply entrusts them with us for a time, for a season…

I have to believe that when a child goes to be with the Lord, a piece of their parents’ heart goes with them. Yes there is healing in time, and yes there is still the gift of the memories, the time we had with them, the pictures, the love but there must also be an ache and a void…to be filled when they reunite in heaven someday.

The pastor at today’s service talked about how it always seems much too soon when it’s a child that is taken from us…their life seems WAY too short — but then I was reminded that really ALL of our lives here on earth are but a blink of God’s eye just one chapter…preparing us for an eternity which we cannot fathom.
I want to share the verse that was referred to during the service and printed on the bulletins etc — I think certainly applies to the pain and sting of death…but isn’t it also true about many challenges in life? If you don’t have a “favorite” verse to help you face the battles of this life…maybe this is the one for you!

2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We are pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed.

In Christ,
Lenay