When Grief Hits

The phone range by my bedside at 5:30 yesterday morning –my husband calling from Tucson, Arizona. He informed me his uncle had passed away in the night.

I hung up the phone, and grief pushed the air out of my lungs. It was only six months ago that my preacher husband said the memorial words over this man’s wife. Now here we are again.

I grieved for each person one at a time –myself and then my husband. Sisters, nieces, nephews, and grandkids.

A lot of pain.

But as I pulled the covers up around my neck and buried my head into the pillow, a song came to mind based on Isaiah 53:3. “He is a man of sorrows, acquainted with our grief.”

Do you know how someone who has grieved comforts someone else who is grieving? By a look.

There are no words, but in one look you can know that the person across from you has stood on the shore and been knocked off his feet by wave upon wave of pain.

There in my dark bedroom and my dark hour was the man of sorrows.

With His eyes saying, I know.

We do not grieve alone.