Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Our choir sang for a memorial service at ACH yesterday.  This is the second time we've done it for them.  The first time we sang was a couple of years ago and Brian and I both were overcome with emotion.    So while I knew what was coming, the grief still crashed into me like a tidal wave.  Everyone would have understood if I had bowed out, but I always feel this yearning to reach out to other parents, even if it means wading through my grief once again.  And although I'm emotionally drained from the entire program, I feel like opening that wound is a small price to pay if it means even one newly bereaved parent was comforted in that place.  

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.  For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.  If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.  And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.  2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (NIV)

I'm still amazed though, how the "stages of grief" cycle in and out of my life, none in the right order, some repeating themselves over and over.  There is no rhyme or reason as to what brings on certain feelings or memories, but I'm learning more and more how to just let the feelings flow out of me through the tears.  Eventually the tears are dried by the Heavenly Father . . . dried as I am reminded of the promise of Heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted . . . Matthew 5:4 (NIV)