Grief

And sometimes when I pray... We once looked at a house when we were a young married couple. It was the most beautiful house I have seen yet to this day. It was huge, with parkayed floors and walls - using oak wood to make beautiful designs. In the kitchen the cupboards were old fashioned and solid oak, with a pantry of solid oak. There was a "pie kitchen" off to the back that was all screened in, along with a beautiful porch off the front. The living room, dining room and another room were open to each other with tall pillars of oak stretching from the parkayed floors to the oak coves. The basement was perfectly square, cemented out with high ceilings... the way it looked it had never been used. The house was old, and yet it all looked untouched... as if they carefully built it with character then wrapped it up and boxed it for the future. The rounded wide stair case went to a huge upstairs... room after room it went. How in the world would we be able to heat this house? It was $28,000... with a pink barn and an acre to go with it! How would I be able to take care of a house this size? What would the upkeep be like? We were young and my father in law was negative. Plus, the town it was in was just not where we were to be (these are the things I told myself).

Someone else bought the house and they fixed it up on the outside so beautiful... I can't imagine what it must be like in there... through the years I drove by it when we were in town just to look at it. There is children living in this house. I don't know the family... but I remember so well the day she was killed. The neighbors had a swing set that was also very old. A freak accident took the little girls life... her brother by her side. And my heart travailed for this mother... I felt myself holding her and rocking her and telling her that it was going to be okay. That the Lord didn't take her but that He was there to receive her into his arms. I saw a picture of her and I weeped for days and days. It has been several years sense that day... I still drive by the house and I know in my heart how they would give anything to have back their little girl - and if I could I would give up all my dreams of the house and everything I own so they could hold her one more time and tell her again how much she is loved... but, I can't - so instead I will hold in my mind her picture and each time I think of the beauty of that house, I will remember the pain of a family with a little girl whose beauty will always be young as if she were made with perfect character and wrapped up and sent to Heaven ahead of time. And although I will never understand - I know we have a promise that Jesus died and rose again. Jesus, You have come to heal the brokenhearted... I pray now that You will comfort this family whom I do not know and assure them that you love them and have given them everlasting consolation and good hope through grace. And Lord, if You could please... gently rock them in the comfort of Your Love. AMEN