Written three days after the death of my grandmother

The Lord's comfort overflows onto others

(Published in The Bay City Tribune May 25)




The loss of a loved one is one of the hardest things we go through in our lifetimes.

My first experiences with loss came during my teenage years when I lost both of my grandfathers. Many years later my Aunt Helen, a wonderful woman who was no blood relation but happily took on the role of grandmother to my siblings and me, passed on. Over the summer my brother-in-law’s father left this world after a battle with cancer. We spent many family functions together over the years and I never saw him without a smile on his face.

On Saturday, the Lord called my grandmother home. She was one of the strongest, most loving women I have ever known. She was beautiful on the inside and out. She was the “Queen” of our family, the one who held us all together. She will be greatly missed.

I know that she is now in a better place. I know that she now has a new, strong, healthy body and is rejoicing in the presence of the Lord. I know that there will come a day when I will see her again in Heaven. But still there is that place in my heart that is empty, that feels deeply the loss of her presence here on earth.

I was told by a wonderful woman at church Sunday that it is ok to grieve and miss those that have went on to be with the Lord, that is part of the process. The Lord will bring us through this trial as he does with any other. We don’t have to be strong on our own, we are made strong through Him.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

We are to take the strength and comfort given to us by God and use it to help others. We may wonder how, when we are seeking comfort ourselves, we will be able to comfort family members and loved ones who are going through the same grieving process. But we can. We take what we have been given and we let it overflow onto those around us.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”

So, yes, I miss my grandmother very much and circumstances have changed the family I used to know. But I know where my grandmother is, I know that she is happy and healthy and just waiting for us to come join her. I know she is looking at her family and saying, “ Stop the foolishness, straighten up, comfort each other, look to the Father and be the family I raised you to be.” Pretty much the same thing the Father is probably saying to today’s world.

John 14:1-4 — “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”