Today’s devotion is by Loretta Dalton. Dalton and her husband, Anthony, live in Baldwin. Their son, Jonathan, suffered from anxiety, depression and addiction. He died from suicide when he was only 18 years old.
After my son died, I heard the phrase, “There are no words,” over and over. At first the phrase caught me by surprise. Then, I was humbled by the honesty of those four words. It has been noted that a man who loses his wife is a widower, a women who loses her husband is a widow and children who lose their parents are orphans, but there is no term for parents who lose a child; there simply are no words.
There are no words that describe the finality of watching a casket filled with hopes and dreams being lowered in the ground. Our language contains no words that express the pain felt as you watch your spouse cry out in agony. Nothing describes the pain of watching your daughter grieve the loss of an only sibling while she tries to hide the intensity of her sorrow and comfort others. And, there are absolutely no words for the agony of grandparents as they grieve not only the loss of a grandson, but in some degree, the loss of their own children, for those children, the parents, will never be the same.
All of us suffer loss in some form or another: death, disease, financial ruin, divorce, severed relationships, and on and on. There are many footprints on the pathway of grief. Grief knows no boundaries and often seems to have no limits.
As with the loss of a child, there are often no adequate words to express the pain we feel for our losses and the losses of others, and, sometimes, no words are needed. I was so touched by people that simply acknowledged that they knew no words that would bring me comfort, but they knew the Comforter. Others admitted that they didn’t know what to say or do to help me, but they knew the One who did.
In this life we will know pain and sorrow. At some point in our lives we will all experience loss but the losses of this world are temporary. In the book of John, Jesus gives us the hope we need to endure our pain. In John 16:33 we are promised that God has overcome this world. The battle has already been won. We have the hope in Jesus Christ that one day our pain will be no more. We have the hope that all tears will be wiped away. We have the hope that we will not have to search for words, answers or explanations because none will ever be needed again.
