This week’s 31 Days of Real Life posts showed the good, the fun, and the lovely in the every day. To be perfectly honest, that’s really not what this week has been for me, and I promised myself I’d keep it real when I chose this topic.
Empathy makes us vulnerable. It’s easier not to feel too much or share too deeply. Safer. Sometimes, however, it’s just not possible: the situation is too close, we’re too connected. I’m worried about two people who are close to my heart.
This afternoon I’ll attend the funeral of an old friend, a kind man and a loving husband and father who passed suddenly, unexpectedly. Now he’s gone and I ache for his family as they grieve and face a future without him.
Sometimes life just plain hurts and empathy has its limits. I can’t comprehend the full impact of losing your husband: it hasn’t happened to me. But I’ll go today and cry with my friend; remember the good man she’s lost; and love on her a while. And I’ll hold my husband’s hand a little tighter, knowing that sometimes the absence of loss is gain.
“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows . . .” ~Isaiah 53:4
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All 31 Days of Real Life posts can be found here. Other 31 Dayers can be found here.
thinking of you tonight, and sending up a prayer.
i am so sorry for the loss of your friend. i will be praying for his family and that God will comfort and encourage them through this fiery trial.
So sorry for your loss Dawn.
love is the fulfillment of all the laws and the prophets… blessings as you are the hands and heart of Jesus to an aching world…
I am so sorry for your loss. Saying a prayer for the family.
Sending love and prayers. I’m hugging my husband extra tight when he gets home today.