IMAGINE….rising each morning to a world where our spirits soar with blessings of our own and for those who surround us. Personally, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t choose that life. So then, can we make it happen? Some will give a resounding “yes”, we can.

REALLY…? Here’s a quote by one believer: “We are not given a good life or a bad life. We are given a life. It’s up to us to make it good or bad.”

To some degree that is absolutely true. Life is better when we wake up each day with a smile, thankful for what we have. What’s just as important, and maybe even more so, are the choices we make. Yet, even with a great attitude and the right choices, when things go bad (which they eventually do) is it realistic to expect everyone to always be happy?

NO….and here is why: as long as there is divorce, as long as there is loss of friendship, loss of security, loss of personal welfare, as long as there is death there will be great sadness. Yet, these setbacks pass.

GRIEF…. whether we want it or not it is part of life. Just think about it. Every twenty-four hours there are more than 150,000 deaths. Think of all the heartache that resounds anew every hour of the day to the loss of siblings, mothers, fathers, grandparents, spouses, relatives and friends. It’s overwhelming to imagine. Still, these traumas are setbacks that are deemed as surmountable and after three to six months, we see light over the horizon.

AND YET, there is a group of people who are separate from all the others. It’s the most unpopular club in the world; no one in their right mind joins it by choice. Thankfully, not everyone will join “the club of grieving parents.”

It’s the parent who suffers the most. It’s the parent whose life is changed forever. I speak from experience.

There is no upheaval, no trauma, no sorrow or pain greater than the loss of a child. When we lose a child our lives become mountains of bitter unrelenting despair and anguish leaving us as shards of our former existence, crumbling pieces of shattered regrets and memories that forbade consoling. And but for the hope of God’s promise for eternal life, there is none.