Grief

It's been a rough couple of weeks. We had to bury a couple of our own. There is nothing I can say to describe the sorrow.

I searched for something that could begin to express what it feels like to lose someone you love. I found part of a poem written from the perspective of a woman who believes she has lost her husband. Her cries are haunting, and her expression unforgettable.

Song of Solomon tells a story of two people very much in love, a husband and a wife. The wife falls asleep and dreams that her beloved had gone. Her dream had become a nightmare as she realizes he is gone from her and feels her loss.

SS 5:6 I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer.

Her heart had been ripped apart at the prospect of being without the one she loves. And, nothing on this earth could console her while she was apart from him.

All we can think about is summed up in those words of Solomon… I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone. We opened our eyes on Tuesday and a man we laughed with, a man we fought beside, a man we loved, a man who seemed to bring so much joy and happiness to the table was gone. There are no words that can express the panic, the sense of emptiness and an overall sense that something important was lost forever. And, nothing on this earth could console us now that he was gone.

In the poem I read the wife did not really lose her husband, his absence was only a nightmare. The loss she felt was as real to her as anything in her life. Her heart recognizes the absence of her God. If you look back to the previous verses you see that she had turned him away, and the hurt she felt was because God was no longer to be a comfort to her.

Her peace that came from knowing his presence left with him. Her only hope for quieting her heart and regaining that peace that comes with his presence was to invite his return. The pain she felt served to remind her of the impact His presence made upon her life. Because she hurt she knew that He was important to her.

In the words of Charles Spurgeon, "The happiest condition of a Christian out of heaven is to live in the conscious enjoyment of the presence of the Lord Jesus. When the love of Christ is in the heart by the Holy Spirit, the believer is the most fortunate of all creation. It does not matter what sorrow you endure; the Holy Spirit is able to make the heart live above all surrounding circumstances, so that we can have summer in the midst of winter, and pluck our ripest fruits when there are neither leaves nor fruits upon the tree.

But the Christian is unhappy whenever he loses the sense of the presence of his Lord. Then the pillars of his house are made to tremble; his fresh springs are dried up; the sun is hid from his eyes; and the sky is so dark overhead that he walks, rather wanders, about and nothing can bring him comfort. If he was of the world he could live in the world, but having been taught by grace to look for something better, the loss of that is especially difficult.

I question whether the most of Christians do not sometimes lose the enjoyment of the Lord's company. I question yet further, whether there are not very many professors who live contentedly under that loss; nor can I account for this, except on the supposition that they can have known but little of that presence their best estate. Otherwise, they must be in a most sickly and slumbering condition of soul, gradually becoming worse and worse; or else they never could bear to have things as they are with them.
It seems to me that a real believer in a sound state of health no sooner loses the presence of his Lord than he begins to cry for him. Where has Christ gone? Why have I lost sight of him? The sounds of his footsteps still linger in the ear. The believer wakens and starts, and asks himself, "How is this? Where has my Beloved gone? What is it that has chased him from me? I cannot live if he leave me; therefore, let me speedily seek him, and never rest until once more I am restored to full communion with him." Let me, then, talk a little with such believers as have lost for awhile the comfortable presence of their Lord."

Would you notice if the presence of God departed from your life? How important isthata to you?