It is of the Lord's mercies...

That we are not consumed. Because His compassions fail not. The comfort of the beauty of the sky and the beauty of the smells of the flowers, can do much to remind us of God's goodness.
When the heart is broken and disappointed and distressed and angry and sad; faith comes by hearing the word of God. God promises to wipe every tear from our eyes. God promises, that if He be for us who can be against us. Whatever the providence that we are enduring, over and over, the waves of distress roll and threaten, as the hymn states the soul, with infinite loss.
Daily when the new borns were in our house I would wake with that sense of utter loss and the sense of utter lack of control over life or death. My heart would be in my mouth, is the baby going to be blue? Like baby Ben was?
The color of them, often looked close to that. God, what if it happens again, I would ask? Where are you?
I know that, but for the grace and mercy of God, I would be in Hell. I am thankful for every small mercy. Weeping on the shoulder of a loved one...crying over some sad providence or loss of a loved one. I will lift up my eyes unto God for strength, even when the pain of loss seems to rise over me.
When Abby died, I had to go to the funeral of one of Ben's cousins and my heart was broken, but I was not with family. They were gone. One sister-in-law hugged me and my heart could find leave to the torrents of grief that were pent up, by decorum.
There was some refreshment in having someone to cry upon. That is a loss to an eldest sister.
Sharon cared for me like a baby in the primitive grief of my loss of baby Ben. I had no personal controls. I had no sense of help or comfort, just grief and primitive. Where are you, God? I couldn't even say that. The discipline of the soul is to justify God, in His providences. I thank you for what I do have?
I thank you for life, health and strength, I thank you for the comforts and hope of comforts that are there. I thank you for the love of family, friends and the people of God. I thank you for the hope of heaven and the new heaven and the new earth. I thank you for the tears that I am able to shed for my ineptitudes and losses.
David, gave vent to his griefs in songs and hymns and that is what it means to be filled with the spirit as the scripture states.

Holy Week, Lord, I thank You that the price was paid for my soul's salvation and that there is redemption in the blood of Jesus for me. There is no comfort higher than that.

God has a purpose and a plan for my life and I must arise to the challenge of the new day and walk with Him to see the new mercies that are for me, in my relationship with Him. To the grieving He says I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will never die. Jesus trusts certain trials to the godly to show forth His praise and the gift of the Spirit of Longsuffering. Love, and commitment to loving God and justifying His plan for my life amidst the deepest griefs are a Christian commitment. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Suffering with Him and suffering, being comforted by Him, do not dry the tears today, but they do much to open the eyes to a tomorrow of hope in the gloom.

Blind unbelief is sure to trace His providence in vain.
Christ is His own interpreter and He will make it plain.

Singing the hymns is a comfort. Praying for grace and reading the scriptures is a comfort. Lord, I thank You, that although I feel abandoned by You in this providence, that cannot be true. You promised never to leave me. Never to leave me alone. I wept many days at Deloryce singing, never alone. I felt totally abandoned. I believed God when I heard her sing that. I could sense that He is with me and that He would be with me in this darkest time.

It really is always darkest, before the dawn.

The Joy of Living, after grief is in guiding the next generation to look to God!

Every March, that is the question that looms in my mind. Where is the glory of God? The answer is, everywhere. The glory of God is in the sense of the wind on my face, the beauty of the raindrops on the ground, the mercy of the warmth of the sun, the smells of the flowers as they bloom. The cave of grief hides your senses from being able to be comforted from these things. All you can feel is the loss. It is like a cement box around you, no feeling and no light can get in there. (Visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction!) Some people have never felt this and they encourage people, with false hopes. It is going to get better...etc. That person is never coming back, while you are on earth. You have to come to grips with that. 21 years later, I still look for him. Are you coming home? No mommy, you are coming home is the answer. That feels backwards, but it is true. March is a time of soul searching. March is a time of change and growth. March is a time of realizing the blessings that have been restored and the glory of God that is revealed, even in the midst of an Ichabod. God is good, all of the time. I have a hard time being good when I am grieving. Thank God that He understands.
Baby steps to marching forth are still progressing.
I know that Jesus is real and ready stands to save us, full of wonder, love and grace. Maternal grief says there is nobody that I want to see, but him, my baby. That is a spiritual sickness and thank God that He has the cures.

And so...do we purvey a loveless society, because we have inherited a wanton one?

I think not! The lessons of the days of freedom and lasciviousness are order and truth, for sure, but, certainly not stoicism. God is not stoic to our needs. Love. He implores. Committed love, for sure, but love none the less. The love in the church is supposed to equip us to love, in our families. Unfortunately, the church does as much to cause loveless children as the drink or bottle. Go home and spend yourself on your family after church. Go home and sin no more. We gather to worship God and then we return to the garden to tend and to keep it. Do not let your children go without saying I love you, or the hippy generation will return to bite us again and this time with more vengeance.
Ichabod, was the cry of a woman bereft and dying. Where is the glory in a loveless and painfilled life? God is still everywhere is the answer. Where does she see Him? In the life of the body of Christ and the comforts that our God affords. Where is the comfort of God, when anarchy and uncivility reigns? Is its remedy in stoicism? If that is the remedy phoooey on it, I say. I am no judge of it. God is love and if we are busy loving one another in the godly way, we will have no time to love one another in the wanton way. Needs of care and concern are mountainous and we cannot climb them. Give of yourself in your marriage. Me! Give of yourself in your mothering. Me! Get to work on that.
We miss heaven, often, attempting to build cathedrals.
I say, God bless the generation that took that wicked stoicism to task. More souls will be in heaven in penitence, than in pride. Father forgive us!

Valley of Decision, Lord Barrymore

Bless God for the precious mirror that Lord Barrymore was of the grieved and grieving soul in Valley... God blessed his performance to be a mirror of the pit of Hell itself. The grief that is captive and damns the man or woman who by pain and remorse for the want of limbs or ability or money spites the day he gave any extra service to the undeserving. God has mercy and resists the proud, but nothing damns a soul like the grief that overwhelms me day to day. Thank you God for mercy and redemption!
If you have the privilege to watch this warning of soul, it would be profitable. I don't know if those who have not had a Job's wife experience could appreciate the sight of a grieved and grievous person. I took it to heart. Everytime I think of the fact that my Jesus stands in heaven with the Father and implores God not to damn me, though I struggle daily with a grief that could expunge me. I thank God. He is the one who challenges the soul and He is the one who heals the soul.

Though troubles assail us and dangers afright, Though friends should all fail us and foes all unite...

Grief stops there, too bad, we say. Others have and I have not. What have you not that God has not ordained.
They often have that stalwart, Donald Crisp, playing the life of the prosperous, or nobleman. Is it not easy to be godly, when you have all your faculties and your mind doesn't swarm with memories of dead and dying around you and everytime you look at the loss of your faculties they remind you of the grief. Not necessarily. It could have been Crisp's part to play the heartless, who spits on the paralytic, in his grief. The godly carries the ailing to the throne of grace. David said, let him curse, maybe God will have mercy on me, as such.
Grief blinds and deafens and stifles. Godliness, visits the afflicted in their infirmity and keeps oneself unspotted from the world. We may enter into their grief, for a moment with them, just listening to one story, again, and again.
It seemed a blessing to my father-in-law to tell the story everyday, of Sammy. I saw Mom grieve and sigh at every thought. What blesses one, may afflict the other. It is a difficult bridge to cross. We do wrong to relegate the smitten and aching to a portion outside of Grace. Jesus and He alone ready stands to save us. Filled with wonder love and power.
Jesus saw that noone would be there in the week, when the widow who gave the 2 mites was hungry and the clerics were eating her portion. Jesus died to save those who the system had excluded from salvation. The weak and the weary and the sad. Can we find 'ligion, who can't see the sky for grief? Maybe not? But there is a stronger than the strong man. He died that Job's wife, even could be saved.

Trust?

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart.
I love that that was my mother-in law's life verse, because, when I go through the grief cycle of this month, That verse is the verse that guides me, because she was my spiritual director of my grief.
She took me through that year and answered many of my questions and just as quickly as she answered me, as to how she could have lived after that, she was gone. I call her blessed, because she showed me how to deal with the stupidity of others who cannot understand grief. Life without grief is over, when a child is gone and stupid people say, get over it. That means you can't share with them. You will always grieve, you just have to learn how to live and grow from the grief. Proverbs 3...He directs your paths. Thank you God!