Sunday 4th November - 9:54pm
1Th 4:13-18
13 Now we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also we believe that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep as Christians. 15 For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
It's 21:54. I'm sat in ICU on the 4th floor of the Royal Free hospital. Hyasmine, my very dear friend & sister lies not far away, her brain inactive, her body supported by machines. Final tests are being done. Helen is here with Kate her closest friend & companion for 30 years. Tears flow. We wait for confirmation of the news we don't want to here. Hyasmine is in her early 50's. Through her the Lord has blessed our church & my family in ways too numerable to list here. It is enough to say that today 40 people ate the lunch she prepared with Kate. She collapsed having just finished preparing it. We ate knowing her condition was critical. We prayed seeking a miracle but knew this kind of miracle the Lord does not do often. Our sister has fallen asleep in Christ.
You might ask why I am writing a blog entry now. To pass the time? Perhaps more to avoid mulling on the reality that Hyasmine has fallen asleep. We have been at SJWRBC for 7 years. So have Hyasmine & Kate. They have sung with us, prayed with us. Hyasmine especially has taught our children. She has welcomed & befriended & cooked & cleaned. I wasn't going to do the list. I see her smile in my minds eye. I remember her voice & the hug she gave me last week as we greated each other.
To be honest the grief is yet to hit me. It will. Right now my concern is for Kate.
The church has come a long way in 7 years. Of all those at the church, Hyasmine has been one of the very few people the Lord has used most over that time. Now she knows in experience what Paul knew by faith, "It is better to be with the Lord."
Sunday 11th November 2:30pm
Ambushed by Grief
I knew today was going to be difficult. It has been harder than I expected. I was preaching in Greenwich, Devonshire Drive Baptist, this morning. It was already going to be difficult with the loss of Hyasmine still filling my mind. It was before that going to be harder. The reason - very sadly the pastor's son had died a month earlier. I was blessed to have the pastor and his wife in the service. The first time they had been back to church since Alex's death. In a sense it made my job harder, but there was encouragement here for me. Even in their circumstances their faith is holding; God gives grace as needed.
What I was entirely unprepared for was the way grief ambushed me at the end of the service. Up to today my grief at Hyasmine's death had been sporadic and unsettlingly shallow. But as I finished the sermon grief ambushed me. I barely managed to announce the final hymn "When I Survey The Wondrous Cross" before the tears began rolling down my face. I was entirely unable to sing. For a moment my shoulders shook and I simply sobbed. No amount of trying to get myself back together would stop the tears.
I had spoken from John 13 v 1 to 17 "The full extent of God's love". I had said that though life is often painful and full of questions we cannot answer we cannot question God's love towards us. With power over the universe Jesus decides to wash his disciples' feet, to serve as an illustration of what he is about to do. Still holding all power and authority he submited himself to death in order to come to each one of us and personally wash the grime of sin off our souls.
I may not have answers to all the questions in my head. I may not be able to stop the tears flowing down my cheeks, but I know the love of my Saviour. I know my sister is with him. I grieve but I have hope because of the love that Jesus poured out in action and in truth. My prayer and my hope is that today of all days my affliction may have been a comfort to others more afflicted than myself.
2Co 1:3-7
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
