Just last week, a few more of my friends and acquaintances passed away. I guess that we can surmise that the older we get, the list of family and friends we have will, due to death, begin to diminish in length. During the past several years, I have lost more than thirty friends and family from my list.
Since you and I live fairly close within a rural area, I would imagine that some of you have some of those same people on your lists as well. Of course, you and I are saddened by these losses, even when we believe that these valued people have gone to a “better place.” When they were still alive, we took comfort in knowing that our family and friends are no more than a phone call or an “email” away. We are knocked out of that comfort zone by their passing because we don’t want to lose them to a place where we cannot directly communicate with them. We are not comforted by the fact that now, we can only communicate with them through prayer and then perhaps God or Jesus will deliver the message to them. We wish to do it ourselves! We find difficulty in our sadness remembering Paul’s words that the “Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” (Romans 8:26)
Upon the loss of a loved one, or any sad occurrence for that matter, that sadness clouds our judgment and sometimes our faith. Then, we begin walking through the dark shadowy valley we know from the Twenty-third Psalm. Perhaps there is also something else hidden in our sadness. It’s possible that fear is lurking back there somewhere.
Consequently, we may call up that rather callous old saying: “When your number is up, your number is up!” Now fear enters our heads and we begin to have doubts about our futures and whether our belief systems will hold true. We are scared!
We might “go” at any time! All of a sudden, we are no longer comforted by our belief that we will join our saintly family and friends in that “better place.” Oh, my heavens! Now we will lose our family and friends here on Earth!
Rather than dwelling on the loss of loved ones by their deaths or the loss of loved ones who are still living by our own deaths, we should remember Paul’s words in Romans 8:37, “In all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us….neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Now you may ask, “What qualifies us for this love?”….Go to church every Sunday? Do a good turn daily? Recite the Lord’s Prayer? Sing a hymn or two? Well, perhaps these things wouldn’t hurt, but maybe we should consider another approach: Revisit the Twenty-third Psalm! If you don’t know much of it by heart, now is a good time to grab your Bible and review it.
Both Paul’s letter to the Romans and the Twenty-third Psalm boil down to essentially the same thing: Put aside your fears, your worries, your sadness, and your problems. Instead, put your trust in God! We actually walk through many “shadowy valleys” during our earthly lifespans, but because of God’s love for us, we “break out” of those shadows into the light again. We are God’s sheep and He will take care of us in His best knowing and possible way … if we let Him!
Bill Seneschal, United Methodist Church Certified Lay Speaker; member, Walton Ministerial Assoc.
