“Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God…”
Isaiah 40:1
For several years, the month of December was a very difficult season to journey through.
Our daughter, Laura Grace was born on December 8th.
After 4 ½ years of an amazing, challenging, beautiful gift of a life,
she had a massive stroke on Mother’s Day and left this world two days later.
After her death, with December being Laura Grace’s birth month,
Christmas commercials of toddlers and toys felt like a continuous excruciating gut punch.
Mother’s Day was pretty sucky too.
(“Sucky”: a rare theological term meaning “not good” in the most extreme way.) (-:
We were/are exceedingly blessed to be Laura Grace’s parents.
Yet, the present feelings of joy and peace accompanying that statement were hard won
only after weathering a long, heartbreaking, life-altering storm of grief.
I share this now because… you know someone who has lost someone.
You may be that someone.
This year has been a year of great losses – in many ways, on many fronts.
For this moment, I want to focus on those who have lost a loved one
and will be facing their first Christmas without that person.
In this season of giving gifts, please believe me when I say that the very best gift we can give to the person who has lost someone dear to them – is to acknowledge that loss.
Acknowledging the loss acknowledges and honors the life of the person who is no longer here.
It is an anchor of comfort in the storm tossed world of grief when someone takes the time to say “I remember”.
I remember your loved one. I remember your loss. I remember you.
My invitation to all of us is to offer this gift of remembering, this gift of honoring,
this gift of joining someone just trying to make it through… on their journey.
One of the many difficult aspects of surviving a death is watching the world continue as if nothing has changed,
when for the person who has suffered the loss, absolutely everything has changed.
Every thought is different, every move is different, every breath is different,
because all are now taking place in a world bereft of the one who is gone.
It is a healing balm to acknowledge that change… to stop in the midst of
a world so wildly spinning and say to another soul,
“I remember your loved one. I remember your loss. I remember you.”
May we offer that comfort, may we offer that care, may we offer that gift.
Always thankful for the gift of you, 
Dena
If you would like to view past editions of Grace for the Journey, follow this link: https://fairwaydistrictnc.org/category/from-the-ds/