Dealing with loss
>2006-04-25 - 7:46 p.m.
Hey..I posted this in our teamhero blog recently and just so my diary won't be all lyrics I decided to post the same entry here too.
On Thursday last week a lot of the D Zoners + Jian Ming went down for Cherie's grandmother's wake. After we sang the hymns, one of the grandaughters came up to share a few words. She talked about how she would sometimes still expect to find her grandmother sitting in her chair when she returned home. When she said that, I immediately started to cry. I used to think the exact same thing. For a period of time after my mom passed away, during my bus trips home, I would often wish that she would be at home when I opened the door, that I would hear her voice greeting me like she always used to. She had spoken my innermost thoughts aloud.
When I came home just awhile ago, I wondered, why is it that I'm not completely devastated by her death? My mom was everything there was in the world to me. She united our family, she was the one who would bring me out and spend time with me and love me. My dad wasn't really there for me, and my sisters and I weren't that close. When I was very very much younger, probably 10 or 11 years old, I would often sleep in her room with her. While she was asleep I would hug her and wonder, what will I do when she dies? I didn't have any answers then, and I don't have a definate one now either.
The day just after my mom passed away I felt normal. In fact I felt at rest and peace, as though things were better this way. I felt comforted. I remember reading somewhere that God reserves a special peace for the bereaved, and I can give testament to that. My sisters felt the same way too. Somehow we just managed to carrying on living. My eldest sister and I were talking once, and I remember her telling me that somehow dealing with the loss isn't as bad as she had envisioned. I agree.
And can I tell you something amazing? For quite a few months already, I've been finding that everything is falling into place. For instance, one day before prayer meeting when I was praying at home it was impressed upon my heart that I should be more of an intercessor for my friends. So I prayed about it, thinking nothing much of it. Then, when I went for prayer meeting later, Dominic talked about being intercessors for our friends! It was the exact word. Another time, I had written a letter to Dawn based on Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, a verse which Sister Eileen shared during a resource meeting and really impacted me. And within a week or two, Dawn told me that Pastor Lia was going to share that verse during the following service!!! Wow. And a similar experience just happened today. Last night I was reading Next Door Saviour by Max Lucado. One of the chapters was talking about how Lazarus, a close friend of Jesus, had passed away, and how Jesus reacted at the funeral. Ultimately Jesus raised him from the dead, but have you ever wondered what to do at funerals when it seems that there's nothing you can say? The vast majority of us would probably not raise an embalmed body from the dead, but what can you to do comfort those who are griefing? Here's the answer:
Adapted from Next Door Saviour by Max Lucado
"Do you see a Saviour with Terminator tenderness bypassing the tears of Martha and Mary (sisters of Lazarus) and, in doing so, telling them and all grievers to buck up and trust?
I don't. I don't because of what Jesus does next. He weeps. He sits on the pew betwen Mary and Martha, puts an arm around each, and sobs. Among the three, a tsunami of sorrow is stirred; a monsoon of tears is released. Tears that reduce to streaks the watercolor conceptions of a cavalier Christ. Jesus weeps.
He weeps with them.
He weeps for them.
He weeps with you.
He weeps for you.
He weeps so we will know: Mourning is not disbelieving. Flooded eyes don't represent a faithless heart. A person can enter a cemetery Jesus-certain of life and death and still have a Twin Tower crater in the heart. Christ did. He wept, and he knew he was ten minutes from seeing a living Lazarus!
And his tears give you permission to shed your own. Grief does not mean you don't trust; it simply means you can't stand the thought of another day without the Jacob or Lazarus of your life. If Jesus gave the love, he understands the tears."
John 11:33-35
33 Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. 34 And He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see." 35 Jesus wept.
Jesus wept.
He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.
When I read this passage yesterday it wasn't an earth-shaking moment. But do you know how I see it now? God was preparing me for a hole in the road that I wasn't even aware of. To me it's His way of telling me, I am in control of your life, and I know your pain. It brings me great comfort to know that in my sorrow and sadness that there is someone who weeps for me and with me. A Saviour near enough to touch. Strong enough to trust.
-Dee