Loss and Provision

My Granddad died on Halloweeen.

I have a large family, lots of aunts and uncles and cousins and kids, from the biggest who duck to get through doorways to the littlest at six weeks old.  It was a good four days of family, memories, food, and tears.  No one wanted to be there for that reason, but we amassed as one at the funeral home and at family members’ houses and hung onto each other in our grief those four days even as we patted the casket at the gravesite to say good-bye to Granddad one more time.

It’s been almost two weeks, and one week since the funeral.  For my family, life has gone back to normal.  Our kids still have school, my husband and I still have work to do.  We live far from my family, so Granddad’s loss is not as first-hand, his absence relegated to quiet moments where we stop and think: he’s gone.

For my grandmother, who shared his life intimately, loss is felt every minute, every second.  Everyday activities are disturbed.  There is a new normal for her to learn.  Same with those who live close by, who are an everyday part of my grandparents’ lives.  Their new normal looks quite a bit different than mine, which is just slightly changed to reflect the hole in my history, the memories that come more often now because that’s all I have left of his life and I want him to stay close.  But all that goes on inside, where no one sees.

In my Bible I keep several pages from a daily devotional book that I receive each month; topics that stand out are carefully torn out and stashed between the pages.  Many of them deal with loss.  I find it meaningful that of all the pages I chose to stick in my Bible, the ones that speak of death and of God’s provision of comfort and peace during hard times are here for me.  I know this is God’s doing.

The world may not see me remember my Granddad and mourn his loss, but God does.  He comforts me through these pages just as he comforts the rest of my family members with whatever they need to feel at peace with the loss.  He reminds me that he is there as I make dinner, schedule doctor appointments, run kids to their activities.  He reminds me that he experiences my grief, too, and that Granddad is with him in heaven.

God provides for all of us in so many ways that we may not see or recognize, but as I open my Bible to those pages, I see his hand in even the smallest and the most innocuous places.

He did this wonderful thing for me.  He does wonderful things for all of us.

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Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.  Psalm 116:15 (NKJV)

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  1 Corinthians 15:57 (NKJV)

But those who wait on the Lord will find new strength.  They will fly high like eagles.  They will run and not grow weary.  They will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31 (NLT)