Today we attended another funeral, another gathering of dear friends who don't see each other often enough. Many of us have known each other since high school youth group and only cross paths at funerals, or so it seems.
This memorial service was especially hard for everyone because it was the second untimely death of a 21 year old son of one of us. After all, we were invincible -- aren't our kids invincible too? This is not supposed to happen to any of us - not even once, certainly not twice.
We prayed God would send great comfort to this family today. He did. The Lord called on one whose own sorrow could speak volumes of hope to the hurting.
After the service I spoke with the father whose 21 year old son died last year. I knew it took a lot just for him to attend the service, or so I thought. I told him how much it must mean to the family to have him there.
He quickly told me how he went immediately to see the mom whose son just died. He knew she would need someone to lean on who had walked this rugged path. He knew she needed to have someone to talk to who could really understand how she feels. In his words, "She needed to see someone who has gone through it and survived!."
What a beautiful picture of how we, the body of Christ, are to be for others. Pondering this level of sacrificial love, the verse "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." John 15:13, keeps flowing through my mind. In a certain sense, he laid down his own life of suffering to take up hers. This father laid aside his own pain to assuage the pain of a friend, running to her side as soon as he heard the news.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. II Corinthians 1:3-4.
God did send amazing comfort today. Sometimes God's best is not a huge, supernatural miracle, but the gentle kindness of a true friend. "Greater love has no one than this..."
May the Lord bless you and keep you dear friends,
Karen
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