Monday, February 16, 2009

Reflections on Lose of loved one!

I shared these thoughts today with a dear friend in New Orleans as a response to feeling guilty about her fiance' moving from Seattle to New Orleans and within weeks was gunned down in front of their home. I hope that this thought will be of encouragement to anyone who reads it.
"I have been thinking about your last e-mail and your expressing guilt about Howard's decision to move to New Orlean's. I know in your head you realize that Howard's death is not a result of something that you did or didn't do. Yet I am sure in your heart you feel differently. I have had thoughts that if I had acted differently toward Howard that possibly he wouldn't have moved down to New Orleans, yet the simple truth is, Howard's death was caused by people who didn't know him and who had evil in their hearts. Unfortunately Howard was a by standar as they were acting out the evil in their hearts. And their evil has left many hearts broken and very saddenned. I pray Vernella the those people's evil hearts will not steal the joy and love and expectations that you were felling with Howard. That would be a terrible crime indeed.
I am not sure there is ever really anything that can be said to comfort ones heart when we loose someone that is very dear to us, be it through illness or sudden death (car accidents or murder) or even thru old age. Our hearts still ache over their leaving us. The Apostle Paul once wrote, "Where is thy victory oh death, where is thy stinge, for in Christ there is no death but life." (loose translation) As survivors of those who have gone on before us, if we do not live the life that we still have with love and energy and excitement and investiment in those around us and those we will meet, then "death" has victory.
I think this is the greatest meaning of the story of Christ's resurrection, that there is life beyond the last moment we have experienced. There is hope, there is future with each breath that we continue to take. I believe that those who have passed before us, help give us the energy and courage we need to move ahead each day and this is done through those memories that we carry with us, about who they were and the experiences that we had with them. So our future is continually being build upon and bolstered by the past in a very active way!"

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