Love Heals by Thomas Nelson

Author:Thomas Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2017-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

Burying those we love is the hardest task of our lives. That is why at gravesides tears flow freely—as deep calls to deep. Those tears are made of the same stuff as the waters that set the captives free in Egypt. Those tears of grief accompany us through the hard and holy ground of returning to God.

The most difficult part is feeling how quickly everything but love returns to dust. Death scares all of us when we contemplate its power, and fear is usually lurking close by. While love cannot immediately remove the sting of death for those who remain, in love death is diminished as we make our song of hope. “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). Even as we face loss, God gives us clues in the midst of grief that love is with us—and in the end, love is more powerful than death.

Three times since the early death of my father when I was five, an age before my memories could take root, I have dreamed of him: once in college, once at a church convention in 2003, and recently while I slept in the hills of Alabama. He was a pastor, and I have loved carrying on his legacy of serving the church. In the most recent dream, we were together in the room that holds all the supplies for the church services, called the sacristy, at Saint Augustine’s Chapel in Nashville. There, where I have worked setting up altars for more than twenty years, candlesticks are stored among chalices and robes. In my dream, I picked up two candlesticks from my father’s old mission church in Nashville, and he showed me that hidden inside the candlestick bases were wads of lamb’s wool he had stored. Lamb’s wool is the traditional fiber ministers use to apply dabs of healing oil when they visit the sick. When I took out the wool, another older man was in the sacristy with us. He had tears welling up in his eyes, and my father gave me permission to take the wool and dry his tears.

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