01/12/19 Weekend Grif.Net - Love from the Grave
Robert Griffin
[My long-time friend Wayne went thru 2018 watching his sweet wife Ev who was battling cancer slowly transitioning from this world to the next. He wrote this tribute at Christmas]
I was in my study late on Christmas Eve and for some reason sat back in my chair and studied the collages a dear friend had assembled for the funeral last July—and after a while it struck me—most of the pictures were taken in the last year.
As long as I’d known her she’d been camera-shy; never wanted me snapping pictures of her alone. “I look a mess” etc. etc. However, at some point she had begun to suggest, “Here, take a picture of me by this tree…or…take my picture with the sunset behind me.” It never dawned on me until now—she knew her time on earth was limited, and she knew I would desperately want photos to remember her by, and she made sure I had them.
I had no idea.
She had also swapped out the drapes in the living room, got rooms repainted, did major landscape renovations in the yard, and upgraded appliances. It wasn’t until after the funeral that one of her friends confided, “she wanted the place to look nice for you, Wayne.” She did that because she loved me, and that pure, precious love is radiating even from the grave.
She told another of her friends, “Wayne will be fine,” and I wondered what she meant—until the Christmas season arrived. My church family has embraced me in ways I never imagined. I have been cared for, prayed for, and yearned for. With my sons and their families so far away, my daughter-in-law’s family pulled me in, embraced me, and made me one of their own.
Yes, of course there are times when I am lonely. There are times when I miss her so much it hurts. But not for long. The God of love and mercy, who sees us in our distress and who has experienced all the loneliness and hurt it’s humanly possible to bear, unleashes his love into my little world. The phone rings, the doorbell sounds, texts arrive, emails pop up…and I feel his tender love radiating through his people.
They said my first Christmas would be painfully hard. It could have been--but for the unfathomable love God poured out on me. And no doubt a million others like me.
~~
Dr Bob Griffin
"Jesus Knows Me, This I Love!"