To the grieving..."take heart"

Matthew 9 : 18 - 26

There are many forms of grief. Most recently, I have been praying for and listening to friends who grieve the loss of their pastor, through his not being renewed for a second term. Their church practices the policy of congregational voting for pastors, to renew their term of office. This policy is flawed in many ways, and even my friends wonder how it came to be in the constitution of the church in the first place!

But their grieving is real - it was a loss to many as that pastor has been a blessing through his gift of preaching, to many in the congregation. However, while listening to their grief, I picked up several signs of hope, and the presence of the life giving Spirit. As they described several situations, I was encouraged by the gift of love and graciousness shown by many people. Of course there were other situations which were not life giving. But I believe we can trust that God intends hope and healing, even if the way ahead does not seem clear at all.

Today, we do not have Jesus physically present to come in person into our helpless and disappointing circumstances. But we have the living "hope" that has been granted us because our Lord is risen. He invites us all to "life and love".........there are many areas in our lives that may be as 'dead' as the little girl, or as hopeless as the woman with hemorrhage (who was socially and religiously 'unclean') . The Lord's word in our grief is ...."Take heart...."