Death Stinks, But Hope Will Someday Return

It's encouraging to look at all the comments posted at Marsha's blog. It's even better being able to see what HSB is doing to reach out to one of their own. There isn't much you can do to make life easier for a bereaved family, but they're doing all they can.

Death stinks. There are other ways to say it, but I consider this a family blog. Death really is the worst. It means a separation, a heart-rending loss of staggering proportions. It's a leaving, a departure and a goodbye that makes the breath catch in our throats. How can human hearts survive it?

But somehow, the sun manages to come up the next morning. It's Death + Day 1, and if we sleep at all, it's in spite of a heart that rages against the loss. Hope for anything is beyond the horizon and it's a cold grayness that descends over everything. How long this lasts is anyone's guess, but it seems forever until the music returns to the notes, the flavor returns to the food and laughter returns to the heart.

Somehow, the joy of life will return. Things will be different, but it will return.

Chrisitians have a hope that this world doesn't truly grasp. In a way, most of us don't grasp it either. When Jesus referred to his own death, He said,

You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. (John 16)

Right now, we feel the pain. We know nothing but the pain of the process. The hope of Christians is that this pain will eventually be forgotten in the joy of our homecoming. This hope is very distant while enduring the pain of death, but nevertheless, it exists. Someday, it will be fulfilled.

What do we say to those profoundly affected by loss? We mourn with those who mourn. We stand by them, shed tears, and live beside them for as long as they need us. I've written more about this before as recently as May. I don't want to turn WW into a grief blog, but this just seems like where we're at lately.

Marsha, we are with you in this storm.