Second Reflections : Earth Hath No Sorrow...

...that heaven cannot heal. And most often, that healing comes not only through time (my sister was the first to say to me, "wouldn't it be nice that not only "time heals all wounds" but "time wounds all heels?") but that heaven's healing comes most often through other people. Here are only a few people who brought moments of healing in a terrible time to me and my family back in January 1998:

---The 500 or so who came to her funeral. There was such a long line waiting to greet my mother, Ellen's children, and my brother and I before the memorial service, that when it came time for the service to begin, and so many wanted to greet us and there wasn't time, my brother and I started at each end of the line, walking up and down the lines to thank people for coming.

---David Bennett, my d.s. then, who knew that Philip and I were about to separate, and who had come all the way over from Columbia to Carbondale for the service, knelt down beside my mother, who was not able to physically stand, and said to her over and over in many different ways, "don't worry about Susan, we will take care of her." And he, James Powell, Ken Lutgen, and Dick Curry (who was never my d.s. but whom I listen to like my pastor) have taken care of me, sometimes in spite of me, sometimes in ways I wish they hadn't, but all, I think ultimately helping me become the best pastor I could be in the midst of much significant loss over those seven or eight years of my life. And Murrell Cunningham, who always, always throughout that time, found ways to let me know I was loved. And who, at his own wife's memorial service last year, when he saw me, gave me a huge hug and said in the midst of his own grief, "how's my girl?" and I was not at all offended but blest.

---Mary Ellen and Warren Meyer being at for Ellen's service. Mary Ellen was then the d.s. in the Cape Girardeau-Farmington district and drove over to be present for me and my family.

---The wonderful people of Grace UMC who loved Ellen as a sister in Christ, and offered so much hospitality to us.

--My cousin Jane who stayed many, many nights with my mother after Ellen's death, sleeping on her couch, because my mother simply needed someone with her

---Rev. Mel West, a retired pastor who attends Community UMC, who was called about 7 am that Sunday morning and preached the morning services for me, and by all accounts did a beautiful job.

---Ellen's friend, whose name I have forgotten, who searched for, and found Ellen's terrified dog Sheba, an took her home to live with her.

---The Community UMC congregation, perhaps most of all, who sent me to Saint Simons Island for the first time that February, all expenses paid, because they knew I needed some time away, especially after Philip and I separated.

And the many, many who sent cards, every one of which I kept and still go through when my heart aches or I feel alone. I know that sorrow that never ever completely goes away, but is borne with grace presented by God to me through the love of others.

Thanks to all who have let me know over the last two days that heaven's healing still falls upon grieving hearts. I am so thankful that although disconsolate souls may always show the scars, it is God's miraculous, mysterious love the enables those scars to be redeemed as we present of our selves at his altar, and find that our own pain is used to love others through their woundedness to a place of peace and rest.