Comfort Each Other

1 Thessalonians 5: 11 "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing."

Have you ever been to the funeral of a child? Well, I hadn't and I certainly didn't know how to plan one. It isn't in any of the parenting books. All I knew is that I wanted everyone who loved us there. I wanted to see their faces and hug their necks. I know all grieving mothers don't feel that way, but I can't explain the desperation in me to see my loved ones... to hold them... to cry with them... to share my son's little life with them. I wanted to hear my pastor speak truth to the people who would come. To tell them (and me) that my son was being held in the arms of his Savior, King, Father, Abba. I wanted to hear my husband sing "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" to everyone there so they could share that sweet memory with us. I wanted everyone to know that I knew exactly what was happening and yet I still chose to look to God and receive the hope He was so graciously extending to me. And that is exactly what we did.

I can't tell you everyone that was there or what exactly the pastor said, but what I can tell you is that being surrounded by that much love was like a soothing balm to my soul.  The doctor that delivered Jack was there, my ultrasound tech who we developed such a sweet relationship with and who gave us most of the pictures we have of our son... sneeking more to us than our allotted few was there, the friend who had lost a child and then gone on to have another was there, the friends that prayed over my swollen belly were there, the family that supported us and loved our little boy was there, the pastors who carried us when our legs couldn't were there... they were all there.  They choose to love us when it wasn't pretty.... like even when I had the ugly cry going on.  They choose to sit with us... to be with us.  There isn't anything more beautiful than the church of God being God to us when we need it so desperately.  So, here's my encouragement... be there.  Show up.  Jesus showed up on the day we needed Him most... the day of our salvation, so be there for each other.  Choose love.  Choose comfort.  Choose the hard path.  You will bless and be blessed.  You don't have to know what to say... there isn't anything you can say to make the pain stop or even to lessen the pain.  That's God's job.  Your job is to show up.

Three years before I lost Jack, God told me to write.  I know... "God told me..." what does that even mean?  It means I heard in my soul a calling.  I can't really describe it any other way.  But, what I do know is that I'm not a writer.  I don't like to write.  I can't write.  I don't even journal.  But, God told me to write and so I said ok... "about what, God"?  Silence.  Silence for 3 years.  That silence turned into an resounding compulsion to write about four weeks after Jack died.  I couldn't NOT write.  I had to write.  My soul and mind couldn't do anything but write.  In the following posts I will share what God laid on my heart.