A part of our pastoral training course has been to study the issue of bereavement, and the grieving process. The reading material around this, while brief, has stirred up many thoughts and feelings that are distinctly unwelcome, although it may ultimately be good, as I need to push through this to use our experiences to benefit others. There is also a series of questions to be answered that have produced around 3 times the normal quantity of text.
And then Ian's situation with the loss of his son - in so much worse circumstances than our own experience - also brings it back freshly. That must just be so desperate!
I'm not seeking prayer especially (sometimes it feels like we've been prayer black-holes) though I appreciate those who pray for me very much. But death is a part of the reality of life, and suffering and unhappiness goes hand in hand with that. We do not have to be happy and up-beat all the time, in fact to do so suggests a dysfunctional character. What we do need to do is find God in our situation and His strength to enable us to keep going when ours has run out.
And how much would we rather run on our strength than His?
How do I know this?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Play nice - I will delete anything I don't want associated with this blog and I will delete anonymous comments.