One very ordinary Thursday, a precious friend poured out her heart to me about her son's death by suicide.
"She's gone," I heard my brother say on the other end of the line. "We sang and prayed with her." His wife had succumbed to cancer on that fall Saturday morning.
I received a terrible phone call that my best friend from high school's two daughters were killed in a wrong-way crash by a drunk driver.
"Do you want me to come over?" I asked my close friend as soon as she spilled the ugly news that her brother's life had been snuffed out suddenly.
I could go on and on and on.
Loss. Death. Unstoppable grief.
So much sadness. So little understanding.
Each person loved so fiercely. Each tender one lost too early. Each story shared bravely with me.
Nothing is more sacred than to share another's pain.
It brings both great sorrow and surprising healing.
Each time I enter into this very "holy ground" space, I count it as one of the greatest gifts I will ever know in this lifetime, the gift of another in their most vulnerable and real and raw place.
Sheer, terrible beauty.
For those of you who have wildly loved and lost a precious someone, I pray today that you would find a safe space to share your true heart, the one that might be in great pain.
I pray that those who listen would dive deep and sit still and share some measure of your grief and suffering, so that you would feel unexplainably loved and cared for.
I pray that in God’s vast wisdom, compassion, kindness, mercy and love, He brings unfathomable healing to you in the places only He can reach.
We share every part of this life together, including the great sorrows we face, arms and hearts wrapped around each other, each one of us helping the other hobble along toward redemption.