Diary of a Grieving Christian – 2 (Someone Died Last night)

I’ve been challenged (in my own mind) about how I’m going to do these. I will have to be honest about how I feel, otherwise, they will be of no use. I’ll also need to discuss at some point along the way about how things feel and about how they actually are. So there’s going to be some theology along the way too.

The other thing is, I’m not sure how many or how often I will do these but following is a post I started some while ago when someone died in the next room. This has present relevance as you will see from my comment at the end.

Someone died last evening and I have to say it was quite distressing. Sue has been at the Hospice since Monday but is hoping to leave today (Thursday 2/4/15) and I will pick her up straight after work. We are just talking together when all off a sudden there was a lot of nurses running in the corridor followed shortly by a terrible sound of wailing and crying. It was distressing for Sue because she didn’t want us to be like that. I said ‘its right and normal to be upset but we don’t grieve as others that have no hope’. I got the sense that the death in the next room was a hopeless one. I may be wrong but that grief was a hopeless grief. In fact, I said ‘that is the sound of despair’. Sue was again reminded of her death. I then read Mr Spurgeon for that evening – a gospel message. I then prayed with Sue and Lydia. We hugged. All the while the sound of crying and loud wailing was coming from the corridor and the room next door. It was about 8.00. PM. Sue wants to die at home. And I want to make it happen for her. I am sad when I think she will not be with me. We planned on getting old together. The Lord has another plan. I haven’t cried in a while, but I will. Sue said ‘I want to die at home in the presence of God’. I’d like to think the lady that died did that – but I don’t think so.

That was never posted, until now. But as I read it now…. Sue did die at home in the presence of God. And it was a death FULL of Hope. We watched her take her very last breath in this life and she was gone. I then stood at the end of the bed with my daughter and said ‘remember the lady and her family at the hospice, this isn’t like that at all’. We wept. But we wept in hope. [I’ll have to do a brief post on Hope because what the Bible means by Hope isn’t what the world means: there is quite literally a world of difference.] You can see how relevant the post is now – as I can. We thank God for His Grace.

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