.“To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own. ”
~Abraham Lincoln~
What does this look like in your life?.Has someone been there for you? Stepped up and stood up in your hour of need. I have been on the receiving and the giving end of this noble pursuit. Today, one occasion stands out more clearly for me than any other.
..It was during our church's annual "First" Conference. A series of messages offered over the first four days of the first week of the new year. In 2008, I attended the conference with great expectation. Gospel Bill was closing out the services on Wednesday night. Though I had never heard him speak before, my friend, Mary, said he is a precious man of God with a heart to reach children with the Gospel of Christ.
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The message was wonderful. A time of prayer and ministry for healing was offered. I received on many levels. As I walked out into the hall with the handful of friends I had been sitting with, the women began to talk about a two year old girl who had fallen into her family's pool that afternoon. The family was among the members of Gateway Church. The story just grabbed hold of my heart.
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Here, I must confess that I often do not watch the news and miss many stories just like this one because I become overwhelmed and consumed by it. Perhaps that is why I overheard this information that evening.
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Over the next couple of days reports of the accident as well as the precious last hours of this little girl's life began to filter out. The memorial service plans were announced. I decided to attend. I did not want to be noticed or necessarily even to speak a word to this couple. All I wanted was to find a place in the back of the room to sit and pray through the service. My friend in grief, Mary, went with me to the service and shared a Scripture at the end when they asked for words of encouragement and prayer.
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I, as Mary later said, was uncharacteristically silent. Praying.
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During the service this precious couple worshipped before their beautiful daughter's casket and praised the Lord with arms lifted high. They stood and spoke, and for the first time I understood what that day in my own life must have looked like to those who attended my son's funeral.
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The mother, who had been home at the time of the drowning and pulled her child's lifeless body from the pool shared these words: "We believe to whom much is given, much is required. So it is with this. With great suffering comes a greater responsibility to minister to others." They also acknowledged that the day of the service was not a Funeral or a Memorial. The service was being held on the child's second birthday. It was a celebratioin of her life. So beautifully expressed in the hearts of this family.
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Over the next few months I sent a few cards to this family. I prayed for them often. We attended the same service at church. When I would catch sight of them I would always pray. As spring rolled in I realized that God really wanted me to lead a group for grief recovery specifically for grieving moms. I prayed ardently for the group. Met with leaders and opened His Word beginning to prepare a curriculum that would bring final healing and recovery to my own aching heart before ministering to others who hurt in similar ways. But, more assuredly, I began to pray for God to bring women who were hurting and desiring healing to the class.
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All of this preparation could not have given me a clue what God would do in the lives of the women who attended or my own life that fateful year. But, here is what I know has happened. On August 23, 2008, I received Isaiah 60:20 and God sealed the healing of my grief in my heart on the third anniversary of my son's death.
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The first to commit her attendance to the class has seen improvement in her grief, recovery and hope have been given to her immeasurably in her journey both through my class and before we got there. She has also begun to pursue starting a similar class in her own church. Healing and Equipping.
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The woman who spoke at her own daughter's funeral a little more than a year ago also came. I spoke to her shortly after the first of the year and she shared that she received confirmation of her own grief recovery the week of the anniversary of her child's death. She gave birth to her sixth child in February, and that little baby is such redemption. HOPE for the future.
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The third woman who came to our class saw her relationship with her husband being restored and left equipped to walk through her grief journey toward healing. I spoke to her this past week by phone and she shared she has been manning the prayer lines at a local Christian television station where many times she has prayed with couples who report they have recently experienced the loss of a child. She said on our last occasion to meet for the class that her greatest desire was to help those who are hurting after the loss of a child. Restoration and comfort.
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It has been an amazing journey of mercy, grace, beauty and healing. It blesses me so...
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I look forward to more semesters and future opportunities to walk with those who are traveling the road that I've been on for a little better than three years now. To speak hope to their pain, to cry with them in their agony and to hold fast to God in prayer when I know the suffering is more than they can bear. God is so faithful and He brings forth such beauty from such tragedy.
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Yesterday, my family and I learned of yet another family who is missing their beloved child. This post is dedicated to the memory of Michael Wayne Hogan II of Newark, TX who died in an automobile accident earlier this month. My eldest daughter was great friends with his sister during her middle and early high school years. This family has been special to us and their burden is now great. I pray the Lord will give us opportunity to share the journey with them as we have done with many others since Justin went home. Today, he has another friend in heaven and they are cheering for us from their places there. Glory, fall on us today.
Our Lord makes all things new. If you are hurting in any way today, please know that right this minute you are being prayed for by someone whose heart aches in tune with sorrow specifically for you. I'm praying for you as well. May His mercy, His comfort and His peace fall on you today. In Jesus Name, Amen.
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3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. 6 Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. 7 And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (NKJV)
Susan at
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LONI and have a blessed week.
As I prepared enough food to feed a small group of hungry men... One of them being my husband... I noticed she kept going in and out.
