We are almost all carrying a heavy load and searching for a safe place to set it down for a few minutes of relief.
Tag: Grief
Paul David Tripp tells us there are two kinds of hope: vertical and horizontal
Wise men and women set their faces toward the Savior in the last hours before Christmas.
The habits I learned while my mother was dying have sustained me ever since.
How we respond to loss – self-inflicted or otherwise – is critical to the outcome of our life.
When we remember what comes next, when we take the time to consider the depth of joy and wonder that weighs enough to tip the scale on cancer and school shootings, dialysis and depression, on corrupt politicians, fraudulent court proceedings, record inflation and all the other ugly things fallen man has made prominent — well, it lightens the load for today by some measure.
I think about Ruth’s roots in Moab and I remember that we, too, are sojourners. Each and every believer on earth is just passing through on our way to a far better place. We have a Home just over the horizon, a whole new life awaiting us in a land we haven’t yet set foot in.
It is remarkable how the risen, resurrected Savior sits with us in our sorrow.
It’s interesting, on a Sunday afternoon errand, I discovered two sheep that moved into the area. “They are Dorper sheep”, their ninety-year-old owner informed me. He’d wanted a pair of Dorper sheep since he was a little boy. The sheep keeper leaned heavily into the saddle of his field-weary four wheeler and adjusted the cannula that fed oxygen to his failing heart. “Sheep are born looking for a place to die.” It was a startling sentence, especially as I considered the myriad of scriptural implications.
In the crush of grief, Jesus asks us, really dares us, to look more closely at Him and to hold out for His forthcoming reality. As believers, our existence will not end in death. Our loved ones fall asleep and when that sleep comes we’ll be tempted to forget about the promise yet to come. That is why it is imperative that we pull close to our Savior and trust His report over our own crashing emotions.