Today marks one year without my grandfather. To many, it’s a normal Sunday. But I can still recall the phone call, verbatim, that changed much of my life in an instant.
Although I had many plans still with Pop — digitizing our family history, spending many more evenings at the farm while Bonanza played way too loudly in the background and hopefully, dancing with him at my wedding, the Lord had other plans,
Gone. A fire. A sudden, hard reminder that life is but a vapor.
I miss his voice, his hugs and the smell of his leather jacket. I miss the smell of the kitchen after Grammy would fry pork chops and make homemade biscuits. I miss the hours I’d spend sitting on the black leather couch chatting and getting interrupted by more than a dozen phone calls from relatives and neighbors.
Grief 365 days later is still heavy. Life without Pop is quiet.
Yet even in the pain and suffering, even in the loneliest of nights, the Lord has used this season to remind me of His goodness, faithfulness and the certain joy that we always have in him no matter what season of life we are walking through. The Lord gives and takes away and still blessed be His precious name (Job 1:21).
Sorrow and joy can exist at the same time. To a world that doesn’t know God, this sounds impossible. To those that have tasted and have seen that indeed He is good (Psalm 34:8), we know that until Heaven, we will suffer. However, as we are sorrowful, we are always rejoicing because of the hope we have in Christ alone.
We do not grieve without hope. We have a God that understands suffering entirely because Jesus Himself became a Man of sorrows, lived a perfect life we could not live, and died a death He didn’t deserve so that He may set free those that are in bondage to sin (Isaiah 53:3). I long for Heaven in a way I haven’t before this and I look forward to the day He will “wipe every every tear from our eyes…” (Revelation 21:4) and we will see Him face to face.
Praising His name for life, praising His name in death.
Praising His name in joy, praising His name in sorrow.
He is worthy of all praise, all honor, all glory.
He is King, Lord, Father, Comforter, Creator, El Roi.
He sees when no one does, He comforts when no comfort is found.
He is peace when the world deafens, He is joy when joy seems to be lost.
He is with us when the road is long and lonely and our friends are nowhere to be found.
He is our rock in the midst of all of the stormy seas of life.
He is our hope — promised, delivered, certain as the sun, for today and all the days to come in this life and the next.
“Those who sow with tears will reap songs of joy.” Psalm 126:5
“When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul”
– It is Well With My Soul
