Weekly Strength
July 9, 2010
4th of July weekend on the farm was our family’s first extended visit to the home of my wife’s childhood. As we tided the house to leave, Dawn picked up a stack of empty egg cartons in the pantry where her mother had left them. A surprise tsunami of grief overwhelmed her with the unwelcome realization that her mother would not return to fill those recycled cartons from her now vacant chicken coop on that western North Dakota farm. Acute leukemia took her life two years ago.
Grief surprises us. It comes in unexpected waves. While coastal waves have great power and can destroy, their action may be cleansing to the shoreline they touch.
When that wave of grief collided in Dawn’s mind and washed over her heart her impulse was to share her pain - with a sister, a daughter-in-law, her husband. Grief expressed in an atmosphere of love diminished its power and deepened her support base. Her action turned the power of the wave into cleansing.
Let’s share our struggles and find in one another the available refreshing afforded by transparency.
– Chaplain Robin
No comments:
Post a Comment