Walking on Sacred Ground

Over the years I have had the sacred privilege of sitting with those who have suffered the death of loved ones. Wives, husbands, grandmothers, grandfathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, neighbors, friends . . . each drawing deep upon the well of God's love and hope to take the next breath, to make the next second, to move the next step. Each looking death in ...the face, as though for the first time, and wondering why it touched the one so close, so intimate, so dear to the heart. Each shedding tears they never knew they had as an unwanted emptiness embraced them and placed a sharp knife in their soul.

Today, I crossed that holy ground again.

Sitting beside them as they face mortality, change, uninvited brokenness and hurt, it is an unceasing and humbling experience to behold as God's Spirit of Peace and Comfort begins to break in where words fall silent and hugs have lost their effect. It is an incredible sight to behold as, along the path to the tomb, they recognize the stone is rolled away and what once they knew to be true in death gives way to something they have never quite beheld or understood before. In the most intimate reaches of unfettered love, in the quiet between touching and knowing, in the whisper of satin stories and ruffled memories, God eases the pain and quiets the sobbing, God dries the tears and strengthens the trembling knees, God touches the heart . . . and what once was finds voice in new transcendence.

Congregations can surround with thoughts, prayers and support; Communities can rally and stand in solidarity with the passion of those who know such pain; Pastors and Priests can speak their liturgies and celebrate a life that now knows Life . . . but, only God can articulate that for which a grieving human soul longs. Only God truly hears the cries of God's children and comes to deliver ~ and ours is to to sit with the other, to cross that holy ground again and again, trusting, believing, clinging to the One who never will let any of us go, nor forsake us to the wilderness.

It is our sacred privilege.