Encouragement through loss

My friend A posted a rememberance message on her blog this morning in honor of her baby nephew that died of SIDS one year ago today. As I read through the whole entry from last year, I was encouraged by the faith of this baby's parents. Although we are not facing the loss of a child, we are facing, or having to acknowledge, the loss of what we thought our marriage was.

That post made me think about Jay's Grandma this week, burying the second of her three children at 87 years old. As our Pastor was reading Psalm 23 during the service, Grandma sat there and recited it word for word with him. It made me ponder how anyone survives a trial, without having Christ as their Savior ... and I don't know what we would do without our church, period- and we've never experienced a loss such as above, but God continually uses our church to encourage us, as they have this week.

Here is an exerpt from a post I wrote somewhere else this week:
"Our pastor done the service, and our asst pastor (our SS teacher) come with him. The service was beautiful, Pastor gave the gospel in such a pure manner, extremely tactful for the situation, but as plain as day. So loving. Man, it was such a blessing. of course, I knew it would be for us, cause this is the man who led Jay and I to the Lord. Anything he says is a blessing for us because we know he has a heart of gold.

So I asked my SIL (the one I'm close with) what she thought and she expressed the same thoughts, and said her H (who has been struggling severely with faith the past couple of years) went on and on and on about him last night [Tuesday, the night of the viewing.]. Pastor attended the viewing last night and apparently spent quite a bit of time with BIL last night. SIL said BIL said if they didn't live so far away they'd start coming to our church :)

Then Jay said his other brother and sister (ones we have not seen, well, I just met the brother for the first time sunday night and his sister a couple of times about 6 years ago); both of them expressed feelings of great appreciation for what our church has done and how impressed they were with Pastor, naming a variety of things from how well he remembered names to his concern for people he doesn't know.

My heart is so touched that our church could be such a strong witness to Jay's family. Throughout the ten years Jay and I have been together, the idea of even meeting these people was so far fetched. Even when Jay and his dad reconciled earlier this year, I would have never thought of sharing a meal with his half siblings, and acting like a "real" family. Since his dad died Sunday, every bit of that has changed. We are even making plans for Thanksgiving now."

PTL