Till We Are Home

Since losing our daughter, certain dates come around each year that feel a little harder than the casual Monday or Tuesday. Her birthday, the date she went home to be with the Lord, and big holidays like Christmas, Easter, or Thanksgiving significantly stand out. 

The anticipation of the day coming leads to some fear, sadness, and lots and lots of memories. When the day arrives, though, we experience a strange grace of both joy and sorrow. We also don’t typically feel as much pain on the day as we feared going into it. Then, the day after or the days that follow bring a loneliness that still catches us by surprise.

But then a noticeable quietness settles in on the next day; something that we did not experience the previous days or weeks. Friends, loved ones, others go back to their daily life, and we can feel a little…alone. Our thoughts remain in the grief that still weighs heavy on us, that we are still without our youngest…that our life did not move on.

At least it can feel that way.

However, two things we need to remember when these feelings rise up. First, we should take care with our feelings in times of grief, sorrow, suffering, or trials. We already feel so much sorrow and pain that our understanding of reality may be quite skewed. Our feelings can mislead us down wrong paths of unrealistic or wrong expectations. This can also lead us toward sinfulness if we allow bitterness to settle. Remember Jeremiah’s words that, “(t)he heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9). While we walk in the flesh, we need to remember the war that wages between the old man and the new man (Rom 7:7-25). Through Christ, the Lord gives His children new hearts (Eze 36:26). Nevertheless, our flesh still wars against us and our hearts can lead us down wrong paths and desires, especially when weakened by suffering. Further, we should watch out for bitterness. “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;” (Heb 12:15). 

Take care, brother or sister. When through trials or suffering you start to feel as if the church or your loved ones abandoned you, go to the Lord and ask Him for help to rightly see. Ask yourself if your actions leave room for the church to approach you. Do you continue to go to church, or did you stop going altogether? Some missed Sundays may be inevitable, but are you trending toward completely ignoring the gathering of the saints? When others call you or message you, do you leave it open for them to visit? The church especially gets scrutinized by our sinful hearts…be careful of this attack, wary of your own feelings. Turn to the Lord and ask for His help.

Which brings me to my second reminder: we are never truly alone. Oh, the great truth we easily forget in times of trial! We are never truly alone, even in grief. First off, we are not truly alone because all the loved ones you felt went back to normal likely did not. Your evidence of this comes from the fact that they reached out to you over the past days or weeks! In our experience, the people around us who love us so well in this season of our life also loved our girl so much. So many times we hear of how they talk about Isabel in their homes. So many people in our community (and even in faraway places) have one of her drawings as a print framed in their homes…when they see this, they remember to pray for us and think about our girl. And I know several families, friends, loved ones who are brokenhearted for our family and their lives are now changed by what the Lord is doing through this pain.

But most important, we are never truly alone for the Lord is near to His children. Just hear the testimony from a small sampling of Scripture: 

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

“But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;” Psalm 73:28

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” Isaiah 53:3-4

“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39

God is always near you, dear brother or sister. He especially ministers to us in times of great sorrow and need. Cry out to Him. Find comfort in His revelatory Word. You are never truly alone. In this flesh, we will face trials of various kinds (Js 1:2-3) and our temptation will be to feel alone. But the Lord gifted us His very own people and Himself to walk with us in trials and suffering…

Till we are home…