Grieving and Mourning

Pastor Gary

Senior Moderator and Staff Trainer
Staff member
Senior Moderator
Staff Trainer
Grieving and Mourning

Good Day, Friends; Whenever we loose a dear family member or a close friend, we mourn and grieve for the person and remember all those things which made him or her special. 2 Samuel 14:14 (NLT) says, " 14 All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. That is why God tries to bring us back when we have been separated from him. He does not sweep away the lives of those he cares about..."

If we love God and do everything that we can to live a righteous life, we will be brought back to His right hand when our time has come. God loves all His children and He will bestow His blessings upon those who honor and love Him. Mourn and grieve for those who are no longer with us but at the same time, be joyful that they are with Our Father. God Bless you.
 
Amen Pastor Gary- we never loose a thing when we are trusting all into His hands.
 
If we love God and do everything that we can to live a righteous life, we will be brought back to His right hand when our time has come. God loves all His children and He will bestow His blessings upon those who honor and love Him. Mourn and grieve for those who are no longer with us but at the same time, be joyful that they are with Our Father. God Bless you.
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Thankyou Pastor Gary and as we are told there is a time and a season for everything... a time to grieve and a time to rejoice. We all have seasons of life to go through but we know that God is right beside us holding our hand and walking us through.

We have to mourn and grieve because that is part of God's healing power as He sustains us and brings us through the storms of life.

I am so glad that my mom and all who have passed on are with the Lord and they are whole and out of their pain and suffering on this earth and they are with the Lord .
 
Grieving....

We don't like to say goodbye to those we love.
But we have to. Try as we might to avoid it, as reluctant as we are to discuss it, death is a very real part of life. Each one of us must release ther hand of one we love into the hand of one we have not seen.

Scripture is surprisingly quiet about this phase of our lives. When speaking about the period between death of the body and the resurrection of the body, the Bible doesn't shout ; it just whispers. But at the confluence of these whispers, a firm voice is heard . This authoritative voice assures us that, at death, the Christian immediately enters into the presence of God and enjoys conscious fellowship with the Father and with those who have gone before.

Where do I get such ideas ?

" I want to leave this life and be with Christ, which is much better" Philippians 1:23.

The language here suggests an immediate departure of the soul after death.
Isn't it this the promise that Jesus gave the thief on the cross ? " I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise" LUke 23:43.

If you'll celebrate a marriage anniversary alone this year, he speaks to you. If your child made it to heaven before making it to kindergaten, he speaks to you. If you lost as loved one in violence ,if you learned more than you want to know about disease, if your dreams were burried as they lowered the casket, God speaks to you. He speaks to all of us who have stood or will stand in the soft dirt near an open grave. God transforms our hopeless grief into hope- filled grief. How? By telling us that we will see our loved ones again.

By Max Lucado
 
Pastor Gary,
I know what you say is true and I agree, but I am struggling at the moment with the loss of my family and can't get past it. Instead of rehashing it all over again, I have a couple of threads on the Marriage and Relationship board that detail my troubles. I haven't divorced yet, but it is coming soon. The "loss" of my wife still causes me grief, but the thought of my 2 young children being without both parents with them at home hurts me more every day, Especially with holidays and birthdays coming soon. I do talk to God about this much every day and ask His blessings upon them, as well as my wife and myself. I have and see the kids severl times a week, but it is still very hard on me. I know the Lord and time heals, but at the moment it is only getting worse. Any words of wisdom? I know it is a very difficult situation
 
Charlie if I may interject- I once lost the person I loved most dearly- I thought I was going to die and the grief was so crushing- eventually I walked away stronger than I ever thought I could be. In retrospect if I hadn't been parted from the old I would not have been able to receive the awesome and better things God had planned for me. I know it is not easy but when things are really difficult we must lean on our loving Father all the more. May the Lord be your strenght- Larry
 
Oh, I know, Larry, and it is good to be reminded as I do lose focus on that at times. Our Heavenly Father gives me my daily bread....every day, for the strength to carry on and I have been enormously blessed by Him. My 5 year old son manages to break me down many times when he is with me. This weekend he told me he hopes the lady who owns the house where i am presently staying will sell it to someone else so I can come home......:(
My 10 year old daughter mostly acts happy when she is with me and clams up about all this
 
Pastor Gary,
I know what you say is true and I agree, but I am struggling at the moment with the loss of my family and can't get past it. Instead of rehashing it all over again, I have a couple of threads on the Marriage and Relationship board that detail my troubles. I haven't divorced yet, but it is coming soon. The "loss" of my wife still causes me grief, but the thought of my 2 young children being without both parents with them at home hurts me more every day, Especially with holidays and birthdays coming soon. I do talk to God about this much every day and ask His blessings upon them, as well as my wife and myself. I have and see the kids severl times a week, but it is still very hard on me. I know the Lord and time heals, but at the moment it is only getting worse. Any words of wisdom? I know it is a very difficult situation


My dear Charlie,
My heart does go out to you especially since I went through what you are going through . I never after 20 yrs of marriage could have imagined the pain that I had to endure but through it all my Lord and Saviour became closer than He has ever been and I just totally relied on Him for my strength. He carried me through because there were times of deep depression and self blame that I could not go through if it had not been for the Lord holding me up.

The hardest part was the separation from my son who made the choice as he was 16 to live with his dad because the dad was buying him all kinds of expensive gifts and taking him on trip that I could not afford. Even now my son does not want to talk about the divorce and our relationship is very strained. He never calls me and just comes when he wants money but you know what some day my prayers are going to be answered and we can have a mother , son relationship again.

The most important thing I can tell you is to maintain a relationship with your wife so that you can work out a joint plan for your children and don't work against each other. My ex would not have anything to say to me and hung up the phone each time I tried to contact my son but there was nothing I could do about it. Now I suppose is why my son harbour bitterness against me.

Please feel free to pm me if you want to talk more,. God Bless.

But for me I can say that divorce is worse than death as the person is still alive and all the hurt keeps coming back.
 
Charlie - It IS a very sad and trying time when these things occur. Every situation is different and every set of circumstances is unique. Prayer to Our Father can be a comfort to us in these times and just knowing that God hears our prayers allows us to go on. It is His will when these things happen and in most cases we become stronger as a person and stronger as a Christian when we deal with this.

Please remember 1 Corinthians 10:13 (KJV), "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

In this verse the word 'temptation' comes from the Greek root word that also means 'burdens'. In other words, God will not allow anyone to go through anything that others have not gone through countless times before. He will not allow our burdens to be so much that we can not handle them and He will always show us a way out.

Also remember that God Himself is divorced. In Jeremiah 3 (KJV), it is the Lord who is speaking and in Jeremiah 3:8 (KJV), God says, "And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce;..." as he was making reference to the nation that he had married causing Him sadness because of their backsliding and worshipping other gods.

Charlie - this is a time of sorrow for you. But these things happen for a reason and in our frail humanity, we may not fully understand why.

We trust in God and we pray for his guidance to see us through.

May God's blessings be yours every day and may His wisdom be your wisdom.

Pastor Gary
 
But for me I can say that divorce is worse than death as the person is still alive and all the hurt keeps coming back.

Yes, that does bring back all the negative emotions. I am maintaining a friendly relationship with my wife and I have helped her many times since our separation, but I don't regret it. I want to do the right thing not only for myself, but for her and the kids....and God of course.
I told her Sunday afternoon that I am not angry with her and that I forgive her , and that I hope someday she can forgive me for the pain I have caused her the past 11 years.
 
Thank you Pastor Gary for the words of wisdom. I am definitely not a scholar of the bible and I appreciate the scriptures and translations. One thing you mentioned rings true: This has definitely drawn me closer to God and my Savior and in turn has benefitted my children as I make sure they are at church with me every Wednesday and Sunday. And they love their classes to boot!:)
 
Yes, that does bring back all the negative emotions. I am maintaining a friendly relationship with my wife and I have helped her many times since our separation, but I don't regret it. I want to do the right thing not only for myself, but for her and the kids....and God of course.
I told her Sunday afternoon that I am not angry with her and that I forgive her , and that I hope someday she can forgive me for the pain I have caused her the past 11 years




I am glad to hear that Charlie as even though I have asked for forgiveness and have forgiven myself because that is just as important there is still no closure because of lack of any communication. My pastor told me that even if it was him who did all the violation, I still had to forgive him in order to move on and I have done that. But for a long time was blaming myself and had to forgive myself and that is where true healing came in. Now I am stronger than I ever was before and am able to stand tall with the love of my Saviour Jesus Christ., I can say that all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose.
 
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