Why is it
painfully, heart and gut wrenching to care for, observe the decline, helplessly watch
our loved ones suffer? Why do our painful
emotions seem too much to bear in our own bodies? How do we release the tension and turmoil when
words are inadequate and often inappropriate even to our own ears? What to do
with all these feelings?
Is all of
this it in order to show us a tiny glimpse into the heart of the Father’s great
love for us?
“Oh, how deep the Father’s love for us!! That we should be called his children, and that is what we are!” ~1 John 3:1
How the
Father’s heart must grieve, hurt, and long for us when he sees us suffer in our
humanity, the limitations that these bodies allow.
How do we
navigate the intermingling of this:
Sorrow, pain and
suffering
Joy, gladness, and
rejoicing.
We said
good-bye to our beloved spouse, father, grandfather and friend and pastor on
August 29, 2015. My father-in-law slipped peacefully in to the arms of Jesus
with but a breath and then he was gone. We had been grieving the loss of his
life for sometime due to an unkind disease, Parkinson’s.
During his last few
weeks, days, moments, with family and friends coming and going to tell him how
much he was loved and appreciated for a life lived faithfully until the end…
loving well, living the love he professed.
He will be sorely missed. Yet, we
rejoice at the same time.
It’s an
interesting mix of thoughts, feelings and emotions all at one time. Grief is a
process. Questions without nice neat answers surface and we are left with only HOPE.
Moving
forward will be different, but blessed because of the example of faith and
endurance both he and my mother-in-law have exemplified during almost 60 years
of marriage and ministry together.
We have a
frenzy of emotions we would NEVER ever allow succumb to selfishness, desiring
our loved one to be here, now with us only to suffer the same and-forbid it-more
pain and hardship…
How do we long for their returned state to us yet be so glad they have moved from death to life without us?
How do we
move forward with a gaping hole in our hearts, lives, the family table, the Christmas
tree, the familiar side of the bed?
How do we
reconcile the deep chasm of emptiness with the fullness of joy he must now be
overwhelmed and overflowing with? He has
longed for heaven and home and has now seen Jesus!!
Our loved
one has now realized the faithful love of the Father in the beauty and majesty that
the God of the Universe revealed to us through His Son, Jesus, the evidence of
our faith now made sight to the one we love.
How, indeed, do we comprehend how our pain and grief can be the same intensity as our rejoicing?
It is a
mystery, this great divide between heaven and earth which is, in reality, only
a breath away. A single breath between the veil of this existence and the
reality of eternity. One Breath. Just One.
For our
loved one: husband, father, pastor, teacher, grandfather and friend. A man who served the Lord faithfully, we
know. We KNOW! We believe.
He is with the One he served without
wavering, extending the same love of the Father outward and beyond the boundaries
of his own understanding and sense of capability to us and to you.
He has passed
on to his real life and has
passed on to us
a desire to do the
same.
To bring as
many with us to the gates of glory as we can and to lift high the Name that is
above every Name.
In the mean time how do we reconcile this
roller coaster of
conflicting emotions?
We simply
have HOPE. And HOPE is Peace that comes
from One name under heaven, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
It is with our
every breath. NOW. In this life.
We will praise and honor and glory in this:
Jesus is our HOPE.
In loving memory of Rev. Larry A. Morris.
 |
| Rev. Larry A. Morris Husband, Father, Granddaddy, Pastor, Friend He loved God and Loved People |
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