Connected By Grief

I never knew how connected my heart was to my sister’s heart than when her heart was shattered into a million pieces, and I felt every piece fall to the ground.

My sister recently lost her husband to cancer and is in the very early stages of grief.  I was not prepared for how very much my heart would grieve for her. 

Her husband was a wonderful man who loved the Lord with all his heart, soul, and mind.  He loved his wife with every breath and was a dedicated father to his children, although they are all grown with families of their own, he loved each one of them dearly.  He was a pastor and a missionary to the Native Americans and he loved what he did.  

There is a hole in so many hearts that is bleeding and hurting from the loss of his presence in our lives.  Nobody feels that void more than my sister. She is in the “How do I do this on my own?” stage, and although her greatest desire is to follow, glorify, and seek God through this tragedy, she is still wounded and feeling every inch of that gaping hole every single moment of every single day and my heart is hurting right alongside her. 

I know grace has been sustaining her and will continue to sustain her.  These are the moments she will experience the hand of God in her life more than ever before because this seems like an upside-down, impossible situation and that is where the love of God shows through the brightest.  Just when the night could not possibly seem any darker, the rays of the sun burst through bringing hope and clarity to a new day.  

The night is still dark.  The hurt is still fresh.  But God is still good. God is still faithful.  This is a hurting season, but the sun will rise again. 

In the meantime, grief is real, grief is painful.  Tears have a way of refreshing the soul.  So we weep with those who weep and later, when the season of rejoicing breaks through the pain and sorrow of the grief, we can rejoice with those who rejoice. My heart is forever connected to my sister’s heart with a bond that cannot be broken, and so it sorrows with her, as long as it takes.