What can I say? My thoughts whirl around, skittering, avoiding any rest. Oh, how I wish, how I wish so much some times that with a hug I could draw out the sorrow and pain of another and bear it myself. How useless I feel when I give a hug of comfort to the grieving, and it feels like I have left them none better in their sorrow.
And so I struggle with it. I struggle with life, and death, and perhaps most of all with suffering. How suffering is written across the pages of life, and when it comes close to me, how I tremble.
Yes, our lives in this present world are but a moment in the unfurling of eternity. We pass away as quickly as a breath. We are told this many times in the Bible to remind us of humility.
But don’t stop there! Oh no, we are told more than that!
We are reminded time and again in the Bible that our lives are but a breath that we might be in awe of God’s great love.
Our lives are but a moment’s breath, and yet that breath is precious before God. That very small moment that is our lives is very important. To think that such a small, fragile, and fleeting thing is important? The psalmist marvles, “O LORD, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow.” (Psalm 144:3-4)
What are we, these moments in time, that God should care for us? Marvel that He does care for us, so much that the psalmist can say, “He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge“
We are but a moment, and yet to God we are very, very precious moments.
And so when we tremble as our moments break to peices like shattered glass, there is the hope that God is holding us, down to every moment. It is the great hope against the darkness.
Still, we do tremble.
How quickly moments slip by. There is the laugh that makes our heart glad, the smile that brightens our day, the gathering that makes our hearts grow warm. Quickly they come, and how swiftly they pass. They are the sparkles in our lives that glimmer of greater things, and too often we forget to treasure those moments. So also the moments-who-are-living, the people we love, slip quickly by. Do we see them as we should? Do we know the moments as God knows them?
A moment of mistake. A moment of grinding metal and squealing brakes. In that instant the person God gave us for that moment-which-is-life is gone.
Life is but a moment, and sometimes we forget how much that hurts.
Because it hurts to be even a moment without those we love.
My Aunt was killed yesterday, in a moment. And in that moment she was ripped away from those who loved her.
I think everyone is in shock.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to think.
Words cannot adequately describe the pain of seeing those we love suffering under the cutting knife of grief, and that is what I saw today.
It makes me feel helpless. I want to help carry the load, to help stop the heart’s bleeding–a bleeding that is worse than physical blood.
And yet every doing, every word and deed, seems undone, the people beyond touching, alone in their grief.
But I try to remind myself that if the moment of a laugh is important (if only we would stop and see) then so is being there in the moment of another’s grief, even if we don’t feel that we have done anything.
Sometimes it is not the doing, but the being.
Sometimes, what is important is being there, for that moment.
And so I pray, that though I am inadequate, I will be there for the moment, for each moment as it comes.
But still it is hard, because sometimes I so much want to be there to lift up the tears of the crying.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I am so sorry for your loss…you and your family will be in my prayers…may you find comfort in those things that bring you peace.
Oh, Rundy… I’m so sorry. I know how you feel. An uncle of mine was killed in a motorcycle crash about five years ago now. His children were the cousins that are closest to me and my sibling’s ages. It was hard on all of us. It knitted our families more closely together than ever, though.
“Oh, how I wish, how I wish so much some times that with a hug I could draw out the sorrow and pain of another and bear it myself. ” Amen.
Praying…
Thanks, Dee.
You know what it is like then. Arielle, the daughter of my aunt, is the cousin I am closest with. It is a very hard thing to witness, much less experience.
All we can do is take each day with prayer.
It’s almost funny that I would stumble upon this article after feeling the first line last night. Not to say I experienced the same tragic death in the family that you recently did, not even close, but I felt helpless after hugging my best friend. Thank you for your expression. Most cannot write so freely. ~Nick~
Thanks for commenting, Nicholas.
i’m so sorry for your loss. i feel for you and the rest of the family. now more than ever. reality is sinking in, taking place where shock had been. and its tough, tough stuff.
“Sometimes it is not the doing, but the being.” it is often times the being not the doing. my dad died when i was 5, and it is “the being” that helps. even now, 15 years later when “i should be over it”, i’m just starting to fully grieve the loss of him. grieving as an adult, that is.
Thanks for commenting, Minnie. I’m sorry you lost your Dad at such a young age. There is no good time to lose a parent, but there is a special hurt in never having the chance to grow in knowing.