A Step in Grief

"I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps."
-Jer 10:23

There are days that we all have that are, in a profound understatement, "Difficult".  During those hours we wish we were someplace else or maybe even someone else altogether.  Hearing that someone you care for has died is never easy, be it expected or not.  Time seems to stop and merely pile up.  Cruel irony in a loved one's passing.

At the beginning of the month we had a week in our church which saw multiple deaths, including a dear sister in Christ who we all often prayed for.  Taken in the prime of life, she left not only a husband, but a young family behind in grief.  We all grieve with them, our silent mornings remembering her sweet voice so often singing praise during Sunday worship.  A near daily reminder to lift her mourning family up in prayer.

In what can only be felt as unkind timing, during that week I was informed that a  co-worker in ministry has the same mortal disease.  Then during one of the week's meetings, a fellow minister shared the senseless murder of a wife in a foreign land.  I reflect on how these families faced not only a bad week, but months and years of churning emotion.  By end of day Friday I was asked to pray for no less than four other friends from various circles who are leaving their jobs for uncertain futures.  A grief of a different sort.

I guess I could wish that week would've been different.  Somehow to have had less bad news.  But if I thought so for myself, how much more each of my friends!   I imagine how each would want to see things turn out differently.  To direct their lives in such a way that turmoil, grief and heavy emotion be sidestepped.  Avoided.

In a divine appointment, someone I had avoided earlier in that week pulled me aside.  Completely unaware of what was happening in my circles, he shared how he had recently made a tremendous discovery after coming through a similar time in his life years earlier.  God, he explained, had meant it to touch him in a profound way, to his ultimate benefit.  He now greatly valued what had happened to him, though at the time it was sore bitter.   A costly treasure, I thought to myself.  There is no other way to acquire what he had now, he added.

During the memorial service later that week one of the pastors present mentioned that sometimes God takes that which is most precious to us in order to make room to give us more of Himself.  That is wisdom.  But I would think that few are those who are strong enough to live that out.  I would also think that over the coming months and years each of my friends will find out if they do.   I would also think that over a lifetime, every one of us (myself included) will join them in that.  Not something to look forward to necessarily, but perhaps something to look back on much later and be the better for it.