It’s been a while since I’ve written and there needs to be some explanation.
It is family. Priorities are often reordered in my life. As a pastor, I can plan
for activities of a given day and often find those priorities adjusted by
events and emergencies unforeseen as morning gives way to the hours of
the day. This, over the years, has become the cadence of my life.
Most often, it has been related to the needs of congregation, friends, and
neighbors of my community. Most recently it has been with my family and
our congregation has been gracious, concerned and prayerful as Anne and
I celebrated two weddings, one in our extended family, and another for our
granddaughter. The joy of the latter was seasoned by the impending death
of her father, our son-n-law. In the chaos of logistics, God eased the stress
by putting the right people in the right places and times to make the change
of venue and date for the wedding, so that father would be able to be with
daughter for the event before he died. Within days of the wedding he died,
and that peacefully, while telling our daughter “I love you”.
As you have experienced losses, you understand the struggle between
reason and emotion. Within the shared community of family there is hope
for the balance of both as the journey of grief becomes reality. While there
is shock, anger, denial and deep sorrow for those close, our daughter in
this case, there are others of the family who are able to go about the simple
and the complicated tasks in the aftermath. It is not that they too are not in
deep sorrow but that they recognize the sorrow of those in the center of the
loss needs to be protected and allowed, for without it there can be no
ultimate healing and acceptance.
I found myself in the midst of both emotion and reason and struggled to
maintain that balance so necessary for the care of daughter,
granddaughter, her new husband, my wife and others finding a footing for
the days ahead. I leaned into my years of experience and in some ways it
helped but this was needful of more. It came for me when I recognize that
daughter had already begun to read the wisdom of writers that had
experience very similar circumstances to her own and was, even in her
grief, seeking to be pro-active toward life.
I’m finding my cadence again now with congregation and community even
as I stay in family contact and nurture. God gave incredible care to us and
I know that will continue. I must confess to some degree of tiredness and
that would be more emotional than physical. In the midst of that there is a
calm peace in knowing that God has been a constant partner in emotion
and reason.
