Mourning Light!

Mourning is our rememberance of those who have died; the processing of a loss that is painfully acute; an expression of the emptiness everywhere within; and a means of honoring those we have loved.

Did you know that beyond the gray, mourning skies, the Son is shining? Here and there his light breaks through, a shaft at a time, until . . . gently, surely, it brushes back the night.

A Prayer begins . . .

Heavenly Father, we honor your name, even when we are terrified. You are good, all the time. All the time, you are good. Comfort us as we mourn.

You matter to us!

Prayers travel faster than cyberspeed and never get lost. God bless you!

Two selected book quotations begin . . .

Then Comes A Sudden Jab Of Red-hot Memory

C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, Harper San Francisco, 1961, 1996, pp. 3, 4.
SoAmazing.com

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.

There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don't really mind so much, not so very much, after all. Love is not the whole of a man's life. I was happy before I ever met H. [This is how Lewis refers to his wife Helen Joy Davidman Lewis in his book.] I've plenty of what are called 'resources.' People get over these things. Come, I shan't do so badly. One is ashamed to listen to this voice but it seems for a little to be making out a good case. Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all the 'commonsense' vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace."

SoAmazing Review: A Grief Observed is a compilation of the very personal notes C. S. Lewis wrote after the death of his wife. The notes, not initalially intended for publication, were published in the hope they may help others who are grieving.

Buy A Grief Observed Now!   Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Christianbook.

No Parent Is A God

Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive and Forget, Healing The Hurts We Don't Deserve, Harper San Francisco, 1984, Foreword 1996, pp. 55, 56. SoAmazing.com

"No parent is a god, few mothers are saints, and hardly any fathers deserve to be idols. Even 'ideal parents' are at best gentle folk, and gentle people do cruel things. You will not shake the foundations of life if you admit that your father could have been cruel to you and your mother could have left you in the cold.

Once they are dead, we want our parents to be sheer light, with no darkness in them at all; and we feel a little foul if we allow shadows to darken our memory. We don't want them to need forgiving; because if we forgive them, we must have found fault with them first, maybe even hated them. I still shudder when I think about forgiving my mother. She gave her body and soul to put food in our stomach and steer us toward godliness and a steady job. You could go to hell, I thought, for hating a mother like her. Yet, she had a shadow side, as every parent does. And I learned that hate does not have to cancel love, that I could love her as much as I ever did, and still hate and forgive one part of her.

If you feel a need to forgive a dead parent, you must face up to the reality that your father or mother could truly have done you wrong."

SoAmazing Review: Forget and Forgive tackles an important subject. Forgiving someone who has wronged you, frees you from your own debilitating anger. Forgetting, after forgiving, allows you to move on. It is a process worth learning.

Buy Forgive and Forget Now!   Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Christianbook.

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