Grieving & Mourning!

We got the word out as best we could. And then they included a few people that they considered family, close, close, close. And it was a very touching time. I want to speak to you this morning about healing, the healing of the soul, about grieving. And it’s occurred to me there are two ways to grieve and I’ll share that as I move along with you in the next few minutes. Reading our morning, God will turn suffering into good for His glory if you let Him. But you’ve got to let Him do that. And that’s where I’m going this morning. Rise with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. It is biblical to mourn and it’s all right to grieve. But then how to grieve?

When I go to celebrations, memorials, funerals, traditional and nontraditional, when I meet members of the family, those who are grieving the deepest, hurting the most, I’m very careful with my words because I’m never sure that the words that I would say would be of any value or any real help. I want to be careful for the person that I’m speaking to. One individual told me just this week that at her husband’s funeral, somebody wanted to encourage her and said, you’ll be okay, you’ll get over this and God will bring somebody else along for you. She was absolutely floored by such a comment. She’d lost the love of her life and this person said, let me encourage you. God’s going to send along somebody else. So we’ve got to be careful how we help people, don’t we?

Romans 12 rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the love of Christ. So it is absolutely an important feature of the Christian family life that we do more than care, but we find ways to express that care.  And there are lots of ways to do so. Morn with those who are mourning. 

One of the most touching, it’s touching now, it was difficult when I was a child.  I don’t know exactly how old I was when my grandmother passed away. We meant the world to me and I was so deeply hurt and I was in mourning and I was experiencing grief and I was watching everybody else how they were handling it. We ended up at the close of the funeral service. We ended up at my grandmother’s house, my favorite house on the planet.

I loved her house. I appreciated her house more than I appreciated my own and it was because of my linkage with her. She was such a God-do woman, you made such an impression upon me. It troubled me as a youngster that my uncles, those would have been her brothers, her cousins in the house as they were downing their egg salad sandwiches. They’re laughing. They were laughing and I cried. I thought, how can they laugh? My grandiose is gone. But as the years pass along, I realize that we have some built-in responses that I think enable us to manage the mourning and the grieving.

And I realized that my uncles who love their sisters so very much, don’t have to be done there weeping. Those were the days of a three-day funeral service. You know what I mean by that. Two nights of visiting, it used to be two nights, then it was one night and now it’s one hour. One hour for visiting and immediately the funeral follows. Those are the last few traditional funerals I’ve been at. But my uncles, my aunts, my mom, and dad, they’d been through three days of funeral and they did their weeping and now they’re in grandma’s house and they’re beginning to function with one another as family, as brothers and sisters. So of course they were experiencing humor.

To me, there was nothing funny about it. I wanted them to mourn with me. Our expectations have got to be lowered and we’ve got to let people process mourning. They feel impressed to do so. And sometimes it’s not an impression, it’s just a response. I want to suggest to you that mourning is an exercise of the soul. It’s a release valve. It’s a relief valve. And we’ve got to use that valve. We cannot suffocate the mourning. We can’t hold back the tears. That’s not wise.

It’s best to release. Something is healing. There’s something medicinal about expressing what is in the heart, even if it’s mourning. Isaiah said that God was going to give us beautiful headdresses instead of ashes. The oil of gladness instead of mourning. The garment of praise instead of a faint spirit. That’s a promise that I need to take advantage of. In those days back, when something tragic came into your life, a way to show others who were watching you how you felt, you would throw ashes upon your head. It was an act of humility. It was an act of showing this is how I feel. I feel like ashes.

I feel like I’m drained of life. And you’ve got to know it’s okay to feel like that. I’m glad we don’t use ashes these days. We’d have to pay a special, special tax on the smoke. First Thessalonians, brothers and sisters. We don’t want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death. So that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope. This is the scripture I read at the graveside just a few days ago. And what I’m explaining and sharing with you today is what I shared at the graveside in an expanded form. Because I need to do this and I’m trusting that this would in some way help you. So the Apostle Paul is talking about the loss of our dear ones, the loss of our friends.

He says, I don’t want you to be uninformed about those who have passed along. I don’t want you to grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope. It’s okay to grieve. But if you know Jesus, you have hope. And those who do not know him do not have hope. Hope is a sense of expectation.

 I hope. It’s a sense of anticipation. Something is going to come along. And when you know Jesus, you have a hope. You have the hope of the resurrection of the saints. I felt that my mother never got over my dad’s passing. She was still grieving her last day. And yet I was trying to figure it out this morning. It was something like 14 years that my mom mourned and grieved from my dad. And for my mom, the passing from this life was something she anticipated for two reasons. And they were both based on hope. That something was waiting for her. His name was Jesus. Heaven, bliss, glory, angel singing. Holy, holy, holy are you Lord? The saints and the angels sing. My daddy and my mom are there. My grandmother is there.

They’ll never get tired of the choir singing. Heaven is a place of worship and praise. My mom was looking forward to that. But my mom also coupled with that hope was Daddy would be there. And it’s okay. It’s okay to say Jesus will be there and it’s okay to say I’m looking forward to being there because Papa will be there. My mom will be there. My daughter will be there. That’s okay. That’s all part of the envelope called hope. And dear God, how do people manage the loss of friends and family who have no hope?

I can’t imagine it. I don’t want to even think about it. Expectation. Romans 8;28, we know that for those who love God, all things work together. For good. You’ve got to be careful of that word good. Who’s good? It’ll be for your good and it’ll be for the ultimate good. But the ultimate good is the most important. It’s about the kingdom of God. It’s about heaven. It’s about the plan of redemption.

It’s about all of that and encapsulated in all of that you are a part of it. So it will work together for good. I had a very struggling time some years ago. Boy, how many years ago it was. Maybe mid-70s, 74, 75. The Lord orchestrated some things. I got to lead a man to the Lord and his wife Helen and his brother and his sister-in-law, his mother, his father, her mother, her father. It went on and on and on. But then the Lord took my precious friend, took him. It hurt me when I went to the house about a week later just to see Helen how she was doing.

Her little girl was still in rompers, and diapers, when I stepped through the front door, the little one rushed past her mommy with her hands all stretched like this. She said, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, I burst into tears. And in that moment I was thinking, why? Look at this little one. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. She was missing her daddy. And she felt comfortable with me because I was the pastor and I’d been in their house so frequently as I watched the man of the house descend. I ended up in the hospital, by the way, on the day of the funeral. It was the largest funeral that the city of London had ever seen according to the funeral home.

It was unbelievable. They had to re-route the Santa Claus parade for the funeral cars going. I was speaking to people, most of the people I was speaking to in that service I couldn’t see because I was in the major room of the funeral home. But then there was another room and another home was quite a little. And then there was a basement and there were rooms down there. And I don’t know where all the people were. It was ginormous. It was huge. And it was such a challenge for me. And this man was my friend. My voice broke several times during the funeral.

I said he’s not just a parishioner. He was my best friend. We became so close. And so I was broken. And here I am trying to comfort the mourners, but I was mourning more than they, more than most of them. 

And it played very, very challenging on me. So mourning does this to you. It did it to me. That night about 11 o’clock, our neighbor who was a trustee of the church received a phone call from April, please, can you come and help me? Al, I can’t even manage David. He’s on the floor of the shower. There was a reason I was there. I was a mess. And Al had to come and clove his pastor. It was a horrifying thing for me. And took me to the hospital and they got me into a little room in the emergency. And the doctor looked at me and said, you said to April, what’s he eating? She said, he scarcely ate a thing. It was a challenging day. And the doctor came over to me and said, so what kind of a day did you have? I started to cry. And I said I buried my best friend today. He said, oh, okay, roll over. And I felt a pinch in my backside. And he knocked me out for a few hours. That’s how I survived. Everything can do all kinds of things to you. But in the end, all things will work together for good. It was about a year later that Helen made a point to talk to me, his wife. And she said, pastor, I’m still struggling. I’m trying to figure it out. I don’t know how to deal with this thing. She was a reasonably new Christian, of course. She said, what good can come out of this?

I’m a widow trying to raise two small children. What good can ever come? And at that point, she caught me flat-footed. I wanted to say, I haven’t got the foggiest idea. It was maybe four or five years later, that we encountered again. And she said, I kind of dropped a heavy on you a few years ago when I want to apologize. I said, no, no, no, it’s okay. She said some good has come. I said, what’s that? She said, the Presbyterian minister of such and such a church has passed, leaving his wife a widow. She said, pastor, I went to the Parsonage and I knocked on the door. And when the lady opened the door, she said, hi, my name’s Helen. I lost my husband too. May I come in and chat with you? She said, pastor, I had a few moments of ministry. She said some good has already emerged. Some good is coming out of it. She found some good. I think it helped her in her processing. Isaiah 40;31, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, waiting. That’s what Helen was doing. They shall melt up with wings like eagles, the most powerful bird on the planet. They shall run and not be weary and they’ll walk and they’ll not faint.

A promise. So I suggest to you today that, I’m at a crossroads. How will I handle my mourning? How will I handle my grief? And I see two possibilities. A couple of weeks ago, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, I had Joanne Paul’s here. You remember her. She was a funny lady. And she talked about the challenges that she had in her life. I’ve already referenced her since then and forgive me, I’m going to do it again, but it’s so appropriate. It just works. She stood right in this pulpit here and she talked about a challenge and she actually turned. I commended her for how she communicated to us that day. She turned and to me, it was a visual sermon. She said I dealt with this situation. And it was a horrendous situation for her. She said, you know, I am mental and you laughed as I did, but she’s as serious as a Cheshire cat. She has gone through mental torment, major. So she said, I dealt with that. And she said, the time came when I realized I must not get, these are my words. This is what I heard. This is what was implied.

 I can’t drown in this. I’ve got to find a way to work through this. And she used this word. She said I turned that challenge into a memorial. I turned it into a place of sacrifice where I would overcome my challenges, sacrificially responding to the Lord. And that gave me so many. I just saw a vista. I saw a landscape so much, but when somebody talks like that to me, I see more than they’re showing me. I visualize things when I hear them. I’m a visual speaker. That’s who I am.  And when somebody visually presents to me a message like that, I see it.  And that helped me. And she spoke to us that day. 

I thought, good on you, Joanne. I praised her up and down. 

And again, at her mother’s funeral only a couple of weeks ago, I said, Joanne, I said, you blew us away with that day. And she teared up and she said, thank you, David. She also turned her back on us and said that she dealt with another one, something to do with her daughter who had inherited some of her genes. And she said, I promised my daughter, I won’t say a whole lot more about that. But she went through great difficulty with her daughter. And she turned that into a memorial too, a memorial, a sacrificial altar, to not let it bury you, but to take that loss and bring it to the Lord. And amid the ashes and the emptiness, worship Him. Worship Him on the very grounds where you have been set in turmoil and trauma. The alternative to that, there are two ways to have the alternative to it is to let this problem that you face. And then that one, and she talked about another one, the third one, I think the third one, the fourth one, I forget she didn’t go into any detail about cancer. But she fought and still is fighting a vicious battle with cancer. And she’s turned that into good.

She ministered to us today. I sat here knowing her physical condition. I sat there. I’ve known her since she was a young teenager. I feel like she’s my little sister or whatever. I sat there and I was bursting with pride because she took something that would bury somebody else and turn them into nothing. She took it and she made something beautiful. Some of you are very, very knowledgeable about making quilts. It’s something that’s being lost now. It’s cheaper to order something from China. But making a quilt is an art.

And what is a quilt? It’s pieces of fabric put together like a beautiful artistic picture. Joanne has taken these problems of her life and she’s made a quilt out of it. And she wraps herself in that quilt and on that Sunday she wrapped us in that quilt. And to me, it was so meaningful. But at that same funeral for her mama, I met one of her other memorials. I met a gal that I felt sweet toward when I was about 13 years of age, Joanne’s older sister Maureen. I knew through Joanne what Maureen had been going through. She was standing in the lobby of the Hamilton Bethel Church and I walked up to her. I stood there looking at her and she looked at me with kind of a, I’m going to use the word an unknowing smile.

I said, you don’t know me, do you, Maureen? No, I said, I’m David. Hi David. I said, I’m David Forrest. Oh, she was pretending I knew it. So I played a game with her. I said, how could you walk away with me when we were so young? I said I was madly in love with you. She threw her arms. She threw, April wasn’t there, she threw her arms up. There were at least a hundred others in that lobby.

Through her arms around me and said, oh, I love you too. And then I talked to Frank, her husband. I said, Frank, I’m devastated because Maureen has lost her memory. She said, no kidding. You say when I came into the kitchen this morning to make breakfast for her, he said, she was sitting at the kitchen table and she shouted, who are you? You go and find Frank right now. You have no business being in my house. I said, how’d you handle that? He said I’ll go find him. I think I saw him a few minutes ago. He said, he walked down the hall. It took about two minutes and came back and she said, thank you for being here, Frank. I hope you’ll chase that weirdo out of the house. I said, Frank, what’s happening to you and your life? He said, David, I’m in the process now of grieving the loss of my wife. Wow. I’m proud of Joanne, who was here and I’m proud of her sister’s husband, Frank, who’s grieving the right way. There’s a right way and there’s a wrong way. So how are you doing, David? Well, let me be honest with you. We prayed last Sunday. If you recall, we prayed at the first of the service for Lily Quinn.

And then I felt impressed to pray one more time for Lily Quinn, so we prayed again at the end of the service for Lily. I was so full of hope. Surely you were too. When my phone rang at 6. 30 Monday morning and it was Rose, and she was breathless, I was at that crossroads at that very moment. How will I handle this? When I confess to you, I did not handle it well. Here’s what I said in my bedroom with tears running down my cheeks. Why? Why?

You can’t do this. Why? And the challenge I share with you today is that’s okay for the moment. It’s okay to question God. It’s okay to pray this prayer, which I prayed many years ago when a tragedy came in our family and I screamed at the top of my lungs. Where were you? Where were you? Where were you? And that’s okay. What is not okay is if I choose to live on that path. You surely met people who were filled with bitterness.

A challenge came their way. You remember a time when they were buoyant, a happy person, but since that tragedy, they’re bitter and they don’t believe in God. They’ve had it with God. That’s it. I’m finished. Why? Well, because you see, that’s not a good way to go. I’m going to take a verse and mismanage it. The verse says, be angry, but sin not. Grieve, but don’t live there. Don’t live there forever.

My mom grieved until she passed, but it was not anger, and the why departed because my mom learned somehow to get her equilibrium. I want to share with you just for a few moments now how I perceive that I want to and then I’m inviting you to how is the right way of grieving? How do I do this? When I asked why I was looking for an answer, it was already a fact. So the answer to my question of why was never changed the circumstance and it had already taken place. So what I was looking for was an answer. I want a word. I want something reasonable. I want a reason.

I’m going to come back to that word in just a few moments. I wanted a reason why. Even if the Lord and He doesn’t, but if He saw fit to sit me down and talk like a grandpa to His grandson and say, okay, you asked, I’ll tell you why. It would change nothing. We raised three kids and now we’re mismanaging something like, I don’t know how many grandkids. It’s a 13 or 14. I lose count. A child asks you a question and you answer and what normally proceeds the child comes through with, but why? So then you answer that one and it doesn’t satisfy the children and you get another,

but why? And as a parent and adult, you kind of get lost because you cannot satisfy that child. I’m giving a unique scenario, but that child is disappointed and all of your answers and reasons are not going to placate that child’s questions. Why? So the question I had for God on Monday morning at 6. 30 was why. And if God had given me a thousand and one reasons, I would not have felt well okay then. I didn’t really want to know why. I wanted the whole situation reversed. Stupid, ain’t going to happen. Reason and answers and words will not fix me and they’ll not fix you.

So I can’t park at that double sign the positive way, or the negative way. I can’t, I’m not going to find my way through answers. There are no good answers. I said to somebody, I think I said it at the close of the graveside service, somebody came up and spoke to me and I said, you know, an old song we used to sing. Why and by when the morning comes, when the saints are all gathered home, we’ll tell the story of how we overcame and we’ll understand it better, by and by. I said that song is very real to me right now. Maybe more real than it ever was. It was kind of a nice jingle back in the day. Why am I?

It was a fun song but now it’s more meaningful. So here’s what I present to you, his presence. That’s what my friend Joanne is doing. Those challenges that she gave to us in a verbal picturesque form, she’s still dealing with those. They haven’t gone away. She still doesn’t know why she is mentally imbalanced and has to depend on drugs to keep her high. And she doesn’t understand why her daughter has to, Lord, why did you give her that just the same as me? And the cancer thing is not going away and she left to us instead of losing 140 pounds. I remember when she was the full size.

The reasons are not there, the questions are not answered but she’s found a way to deal with it and is this. She’s gone to the Lord. And his presence, his presence makes the difference. When I get into his presence, the turmoil, the breakage, and the hurt doesn’t go away. It does not go away. But his presence makes a beautiful difference. And I think that’s the right way for me to mourn because there will be other mourning days ahead. I will mourn the loss of others and they will mourn, I hope they’ll mourn the loss of me. So mourning is a part of life. It’s a part of the process. But I want to mourn the right way. And it’s not just avoiding the negativity. See I showed you the two ways to mourn, the good way and the not-good way. The reason to pursue the good way is not just to avoid the bad way but the reason to pursue the good way is it’s God’s way. And because it’s God’s way, it’s the best way to weep, to search, to present yourself to him and say, Lord, this breakage in my heart, I’ve come to bring it to you. I believe that even amid sorrow and mourning, I’m not good at this. Please don’t misunderstand me. I haven’t come to you like a person with a degree in this. I’m with you. I belong on a chair out there.

I belong with you. I’m working through this. But I believe the way to deal with the hurt and the sense of loss and all of it is to take it to him. And the Holy Spirit will take over. The Holy Spirit will take over. It’s like Jesus in the boat. And the disciples awake him and say, don’t you care. That was an accusation. And he said peace be still. The Holy Spirit brings peace. I heard a beautiful song sung by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. And I’ve used it at times when I had a musical team working with me in the church. They could do anything. They were magicians. And we had a very, very heavy crisis on the go. And there was a man in our church. He was going to go to prison. He sat among us. And he had a double life. And he was going to go to prison. But he had come to me before he faced the judge. We sat in my office and I said, there’s something you need to go do, young man. You’ve got to stand before this congregation.

They love you. They believe in you. You’re asking them to support you. You’ve got to repent. You’ve got to atone. You’ve got to stand before them. He said, I’ll do it. He was big news in the newspaper. He was big news. I had him come and stand before the church that morning. Then I had my musical team sing a song that I heard the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir sing. And the song was, hold me.

Hold me. Till the storm passes by. It’s a beautiful song. It’s only got about ten words in the whole song. But the way that somebody put it together was incredible. And as my musical team sang that song, Hold Me. One of my trusted trustees, Adeekin, jumped out of his chair. He had legs like a giraffe. He literally stepped over his wife and I think two more in the aisle. He raced down and he grabbed this fellow who was going to go to prison like he’s a bad character. He’s got, he got caught.

And he started to cry on that fellow. What happened in that service? More men came in, more and more and more. Till the altar was absolutely jammed. This man was mourning his stupidity.

He was mourning how he’d got into sin, how he’d messed everything up. 

And here was a congregation. We chose that mourning to mourn with him. 

Mourn with those who mourn. Comfort the feeble-minded. Bear one another’s burdens. It was one of the greatest services I’ve ever been in, ever, ever, ever. It was incredible. You went to prison. Comforter, I’m about to finish. The comforter, Jesus said, I’m going away. Disciples did not want to hear that. I’m going away, but I’ll talk to the Father and he will send you another comforter. The Greek word for comforter is Pericles. I know that that doesn’t mean a whole lot to us, that word. But when you get into the Greek word Pericles and you dig down, here are words that fulfill this or broaden it or bring light to it. Comforter, a consolar. I, Jesus said, I’m going to send you a consolar.

The church was going to need consolation when so many of them were crucified, thrown to the lions, and paid the greatest penalty for their faith in him. I’m going to send you someone who will console you. I’m going to send you the comforter, the pacifier, the sympathizer, who won’t say, dry up your tears and get over it. No, he sympathizes. I’m going to send you a friend. The Holy Spirit is our friend. He’s our friend. I’ll send you someone that you can put your head on your shoulder and cry. I want to come back to that word, hope. The Holy Spirit will bring the luxury of hope to the mourner if we let him if we go to him through the Holy Spirit and if we rely on him. The hope will be the bright light of your heart and your life. And what will come to you is the glory and the majesty, the beauty of a verse, the peace that passes understanding. Unpack that for a moment. The peace, the tranquility that surpasses understanding. Well, why? Help me to understand. I want to understand there’s a peace that comes in his presence that surpasses understanding. My natural man wants to understand, but the Holy Spirit says, I’ll give you something better. I’ll give you the peace that reaches and sympathizes and consoles beyond any word,

any reason that God could give you. His presence can actually give you the fullness of joy. Joanne that Sunday did not come to ask us, I want you to mourn with me. I want you to feel my pain. No, she came to tell you, I live amid joy. And how did I get there? I took it to the Lord in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless grief we bear. Oh, because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. Let’s remember also that prayer is normally thought of as an activity, something that you do.

Prayer is more than that. Prayer in its most beautiful form is inactivity. What are you saying, Dave? My dad was very, very weak. I would go to the apartment in Hamilton. Mom would greet me and she’d say, he’s in his chair. You can find him all right. I’d go in and have to wake my dad up. Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. Oh, hi, Dave. So good to see you. How are you? I’m a fan, Dad. How are things? Where were you just now? Where were you? Were you an Afrikaesomerate? Yeah, I was in there. How did that go? In about the third sentence, he’d nod off. Then all of a sudden after a while he’d wake up and he’d say, where were we? I said nowhere. I said we’re just sitting here. So I used to take great pains to get to my dad. And you know what I wanted to do? I just wanted to sit there. I had nothing meaningful that would really bring joy or help to him. He was waiting for the hand to take him home. He wanted to go home. So there was nothing I could say or do. But my presence was to him sweet. And I don’t think there’s a day that goes by. I’m not overstated. There’s not a day that goes by when I have a longing to go and sit with my dad and say nothing. And prayer does not have to be words. The word says that the Holy Spirit helps us in prayer with words and reasonings that we can’t find a way to utter. So indeed, when I want to talk to him about my grieving, about my heart, I don’t want to complain. And I don’t want to ask why. I don’t know what to say. I’m learning. Don’t ask why, Dave. There’s no good reason for you. You’ll never know the why. Buy and buy when the morning comes. You’ll know. But right now there’s nothing that can help you. So the best thing I can do is go and sit there with him because I can’t find the words. 

And you know what? That’s okay. It’s okay in prayer to say nothing.

It was okay to be with my dad and not try and comfort him with words. He was just glad that David was here and I was glad to be with him. Everything may best be handled with fewer words. And just sit on his knee and let him hold you until this storm passes by. I’ve asked my piano friend. I can’t find him. Somebody else got there. He is. I asked him to help me with the hymn at the end. And if you don’t know this one, sorry. But this is a beautiful old hymn. A bite with me. Fast falls. The even tight. The darkness deepens my lord with me. A bite with another help. And comfort flees the help of the helpless. Oh, just be near me, Lord. Just be there for me. Swift to its close.

Ebbs out like a little day. A joy grows dim. Its glories, they pass away. Change and decay. All around I see. Oh, thou he will change his nod. Be with me there. Stay with me, Lord. I can make it if you’re with me. I need thy presence every passing hour. What but thy grace can foil the tempter’s power? Do like thyself my God and stay can be through cloud and sunshine.

Dear God abide with me. I fear no foe with thee at hand to bless. It has no weight and tears no bitterness. Where is Death’s Sting? Where thy grave victory? Yes, I try. I’m still if thou abide with. David’s greatest fear in his whole life was not the enemy of his body. He did not fear Goliath. He hid from Saul, had a chance to kill him, you know the story, and he dared not. David did not fear his mortal enemies, but the one thing he feared was the loss of the presence of God.

He cried out, Dear God, don’t you take your presence from me. That was his greatest fear. So let us not fear that, but let us pursue his presence because in his presence there will come. There will come fullness of joy. And the last one you know, I love this one, weeping, crying, hurting beyond the telling may last for a night, but joy will come in the morning. For my mom, the morning came when my son visited her in the nursing home, and she said, David, how do I do this? What’s that, grandma? I want to go to be with Jesus. How did Grempa do it?

You see my dad is surrounded by my mom and my son. You’ve heard this, but it’s worth telling again and again and again. It’s a great story. It’s a great testimony. My dad lay there so weak he could hardly speak. He was limp. And he kept on motioning my mom home. Home. My mom said, Daddy, you know I can’t take you home. We’ve been to this so many times. You’ve got to stay here till they get you fixed. And then I’ll take you home. Home. My son was there. My dad beckoned him with a finger. My son came down close. My dad said, home. Tears. Home. My son bent back a little bit, and my dad managed to raise his hand just a little home. Gremma, he wants to go. My mother stepped over him and said, you want to go, Daddy? Okay, Daddy, you’re asking for my permission. You’ve got it. You go. She kissed him. And he went. She kissed him. And he went. Now my mom is saying to my son, how did Grempa do that? And my poor son said, Gremma, I don’t know. Are you asking for my permission? Yes. Do you think that I can speak for my dad, my mom, the family? Yeah, if you tell him how this went, he said, okay, Gremma. You go.

I think he read her a little scripture and had a prayer with her. And then something occurred to him. He went down to the office of the nursing home. He wasn’t gone five minutes. He came back. She was gone. Weeping may endure for a night, my mom. It lasted about 15 years. It was a long night. But she’s enjoying the morning. Joy comes. And the hope of the joy that’s coming will keep you going.

Hello? Listen to it. The hope of the joy of the morning will keep you going through the night. Now my prayer for you is a prayer that I want for me. Is that God will bless us. I hope you never get tired of me harping on this one. Bless means that God will come down and kneel with you wherever you are, wherever you find yourself. He will kneel down where you are, and he’ll take you in his arms, and he’ll experience his presence. And when that happens, don’t feel the necessity to say anything. Just don’t squirm out of his arms. He wants to hold you. So Peter, my prayer for you is that God will bless you. You understand what I mean by that now. And that’s my prayer for Ron. And Lily, is there? So my prayer is that God will be with you right where you are. And for all those who mourn deeply, heavenly Father, I don’t know how to pray now. You see, I don’t know how to pray.

I don’t know how to close. We love you. And we know that you’re not worried about us disappointing you because you are so forgiving, incredibly so. Help us, Lord, not to wallow in our grief. Grief is normal and natural, and it’s a process that we’ve got to embrace, but help us to mourn and grieve in your presence 

so that we can experience the peace that passes all the reasons and all the answers, the peace that passes all understanding.

In Jesus’ name, amen.