Note: On Saturdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
In my world, June 12 has always been my maternal grandparents’ wedding anniversary. (“A pretty double wedding,” the local newspaper called the 1924 ceremony my grandparents shared with one of her sisters and her groom.) By all accounts, it was a happy marriage, though my grandfather died too young, before I was born.
Then a few years ago, it became the wedding day for a good friend. There’s a lot of joy in that marriage as well, including two adorable tow-headed kiddos.
But from today forward, June 12 in my world also will be the day that a special friend’s husband was laid to rest. He was about my grandfather’s age when he died earlier this month, and my friend is a far too young widow, just like my grandmother was.
Each of those marriages resulted and continues to result in new creations, changes in the men and women as they grew in love; the births of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; and the sorrows as people were buried. They are and were blessings, visible witnesses of God’s goodness.
But while God’s goodness is always there, things in this world change, and that’s hard. It’s seldom harder than when someone we love dearly is taken from us. Regardless of how long it’s been, the hurt is deep and intense when we hear that song and the only person who knew the inside story or joke isn’t there to share it, or when no one is left who remembers what we looked like on the first day of kindergarten.
With every loss, we lose something of ourselves. But if we invite the Lord in to share—not fill, for it can never be filled—that pain, we can endure it. We too become new creations. With a teary smile, we trust that he or she is in the Almighty’s house. And we pray that we live in a manner pleasing to the Lord so that we too may one day live there.
