When everything falls apart, Your arms hold me together…
Yesterday one of my best friends lost her four year old niece in a tragic water accident. And I know that today her and the rest of her family feel like everything is falling apart. How do you process such an awful and sudden death of such a young, lively child? How do you let go of all the future hopes and dreams you have for this little one? How do you look at the rest of your life knowing that there will always be a small piece of your heart and your family that will be missing?
I don’t know.
I don’t know how to process those emotions and questions and tumultous feelings. I’ve never lost a child, and in all reality, I’ve never lost anyone that I was really close to in all my twenty six years. My grandpa died when I was too young to really understand death and I lost a cousin only a few hours after her birth, but beyond that, I’ve never experienced the feelings that death brings to your heart when it’s someone you cherish.
I want to understand…and yet I don’t.
I know it will only be a matter of time before I will also experience death in a real way…sometimes that thought wants to paralyze me. It makes me want to put up some form of self protection so that when the pain of death and separation comes, it won’t hurt so much. But you can’t do that…because then you lose. I can’t pull away from loving those that I do with all that I have simply to avoid pain. I might evade pain, but I will also then evade love.
Love is worth the price of pain when the separation comes.
And when I hear of death, it only makes me want to hold the ones I love closer and tighter and hug harder and kiss more. There is great hope in death, yes, and I can’t imagine experiencing it without that hope. The life of Christ offers hope in life and hope in death, and that, my dear friends, is a beautiful thing.
It’s in these kinds of times that make your heart cry out “come, Lord Jesus, come.” Come to comfort and offer hope. Come to give your children courage to face the days ahead. Come and bring your Kingdom to earth. Come and set all things right. Come and give us the reality of no more death and no more tears and no more goodbyes.
Abby’s mother wrote a beautiful tribute to her young daughter that is now with Jesus.
To the Miller + Marner family, you are in the thoughts and prayers of many, including my own.
What about you: what are your thoughts about processing the death and separation of one that you love?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Love IS worth the price of the pain….