Sometimes it seems ironic that death has a way of drawing people together. It ripples outward like a storm, a great hurricane. In the eye of the storm is the loved one who has passed. The innermost wall of winds, the people closest to the one who has moved on, is the most turbulent and strong.
Death isn’t what actually brings us together. It is truly love that has that power. Love of the one who is now gone from our lives. Love of everyone who is most deeply affected by loss. Love of friends and family who know that there is nothing they can do to help heal the wounds, except to be present.
The death of someone we love is like an amputation. While the wound can heal, there is a part of us that’s gone forever, and life will never be the same. Many who have never lost someone close to them do not really know the depth of pain that continues for months and years after someone is torn from our life. The first year is hardest, for it is the Year of Firsts. There is the First everything with someone missing, someone who should be there.
This is why mourning is a process, different for everyone. Some may feel tears flow anew, some may be angry, and some will try to push away their emotions because it just hurts too much. But those who heal the most completely are those who allow themselves to stop and feel the pain. They don’t wallow in it, yet neither do they shy away from it. Because this pain that we feel is the indication of what it means to truly love someone, no matter the relationship you have with them. Relationships bind people together at a deeply spiritual and emotional level.
Relationships are inherent to our design. God made us specifically to be in relationships. He made us to be in relationship with Him, and He made us to be in relationship with the people around us. Relationships are both common and mysterious. They are common, because everyone has relationships with other people in some form. But they are mysterious, because who can quantify the depth of your caring for another person? Who can measure your love that you carry inside you? None but God can truly measure such things, because He IS Love. He designed relationships. And through Him, there is peace and comfort when someone we have a relationship with is no longer a part of this world.
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”1 Corinthians 15:55
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