The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18
The past couple of years with all the things that have happened in the world, and all the things that have happened personally, I have touched grief up close. There is a book by Daniel Walser called To Make a Life. I have not read it so I don’t know if I can recommend it. But in the book, he apparently describes grief like being in the upstairs room of a house on fire and all of your friends are outside trying to help with firehoses but they’re not in the fire with you, and most don’t want to come close because they can’t stand the fire. Christa Wells wrote a song called Come Close after reading this passage in the book.
The other day I listened to the lyrics of the song;
I’m afraid of the space where you suffer
Where you sit in the smoke and the burn
I can’t handle the choke or the danger
Of my own foolish, inadequate words
I’ll be right outside if you need me
Right outside
What can I bring to your fire?
Shall I sing while the roof is coming down?
Can I hold you while the flames grow higher,
Shall I brave the heat and come close with you now?
Can I come close now?
So we left you to fight your own battle
And you buried your hope with your faith
‘Cause you heard no song of deliverance
There on the nights that followed the wake
We never though to go with you
Afraid to ask
What can I bring to your fire?
Shall I sing while the roof is coming down?
Can I hold you while the flames grow higher,
Shall I brave the heat and come close with you now?
Can I come close now?
Lay down our plans
Lay down the sure-fire fix
Grief’s gonna stay awhile,
There is no cure for this
We watch for return,
We speak what we’ve heard
We sit together, in the burn
What can I bring to your fire?
Shall I sing while the roof is coming down?
Can I hold you while the flames grow higher,
Shall I brave the heat and come close with you now?
Can I come close now?
I cried because I have been in both positions of this song. I have been the person on the outside who doesn’t understand and has had “foolish inadequate words,” who left people to fight their own battle. I have also been inside the burning house this past couple of years.
In the past few years besides the Global pandemic we all went through, I lost my dad and I was the one who found him dead. I lost my mom to dementia, though she is still living. I lost my dreams for my kids who became filled with anxiety in an overwhelming world. I lost my health when I threw my back out and got COVID. I lost a lot of my ministry that I was doing and I lost my little dog, Rosie too. And I was left in the fire of it all. Save for a very small number of friends and family, I may have choked to death. I almost lost my faith. My faith was tested to an extreme and my sweet remembrance of time with God, who seemed to have left too during that time, was what I clung to. I finally realized that God loved me in the middle of it all. I look back now in thanksgiving, but I was stripped to nothing. It is a surrender I cannot explain.
I have emerged on the other side of that severe time with a deeper understanding of God and His love for us. I can see how in the church we have failed on a lot of levels to minister to people who were in a house on fire. People who turned to the church when their son or daughter experienced same-sex attraction and the church had no answer to help, or perhaps did but relegated it to the embarrassing basement where we won’t talk about it openly. I can see why it needs to be talked about. But I also see the grave error of trying to throw away truth and accept sinful disorder as a place that God cannot be big enough to overcome, as was the opinion I read in the book, Building a Bridge, by Father James Martin. There is no belief that God can lift a person out of sin, so people don’t even try. This is not correct.
I can see too how tradition brings comfort and protection and how it must not ever be lost, but I can also see that tradition alone is not the Savior. Tradition has revealed Truth. Truth is a person and we must never ever leave truth behind. Both sides can miss the narrow way; the way of love.
I was watching a Jansen Bagwell’s video on Halloween the other day and in the video he was talking about when Jesus went to Gadarenes and healed two demoniacs sending the demons into the swine (Matthew 8:28-34). The response of the people in this town was to ask Jesus to leave. It was easier to go back to what they knew, rather than to acknowledge the one who heals can heal even the most possessed sinner. We too who know the law of the Lord can lose sight of the fact that God is big enough to heal anyone or anything too. We can all be short sighted.
Today, I went to confession. For my penance the Priest told me to meditate on my favorite passage in the bible. My favorite passage is when Jesus gives Mary to John at the Cross. I opened to read chapter 19 of John and I read my favorite part but I kept reading a little further. I read this from John 19:38-42;
After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission, so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
I started to cry in church at the picture of these two religious men, men who knew who Jesus was but were afraid to openly go where he went, wrapping His dead body with such love and such care. The two of them witnesses to the Love of God they saw in Jesus but were too fearful to let go of their religion to follow. When they placed him in the tomb in their grief, they placed their own expectations and religious belief in there with him. They would never leave behind where they came from. They would soon understand the fulfillment of where they came from. It took the death of God for them to fully surrender and know that God is good.
We are in a period of time where the church is being crucified. It is a grief and we must process it. For this is not the end of how God intended things to be. We must always remember that the purpose for this is purification. We must always remember that God is good even when the world looks so bleak. We are headed towards the tomb, but it isn’t a tomb, it is a tabernacle. We will come forth from it with new life if we let God work in us. Even after the Resurrection it took some time until Pentecost, but a new Pentecost is coming.
To all the people out there who came to the church for help when your house was on fire with a situation of grief, where your hopes and dreams or your loved ones or your health were lost, I am sorry. Don’t leave truth behind but instead speak to God about your fear and then follow the truth of what the church teaches and be open to where God takes you. To all the people out there who are afraid to leave your comfort zone and surrender to God’s plan, know that God wants better things for you, better than you can imagine and let go of your worries and fears and pray like never before and let God pour grace into it all.
Veil of Veronica 
You hit the mark on this cousin. Thanks for writing.
We are only on a journey – to a better place. The loss can still hurt in the meantime, very deep. But always have hope in the Resurrection. This helps take the bite out of the loss at times.
I could never be bitter about it b/c Mary, she who did nothing wrong, lost both her husband and Son before she herself was called to the Kingdom. It must of hit her pretty hard too.
I do look forward to the day when we can see our father’s conversing once again together as I was fond of in my youth. God bless you cousin and your family.
Amen. God Bless you cousin. Hope all is well with you all.
Grief is hard…only through the eyes of faith and trust can we truly work through it. You’re so right about believing in a God who is bigger than us and can honestly do all things! It’s so hard to express that to someone who is hurting. Sometimes, the only thing that helps is a hug and assurance that you are there with them, no matter what. Lord, have mercy on us.
I just want to thank you for your posts! Thank you for your courage and Sharing your thoughts. I’ve tried to comment many times in the pass few years, but for whatever reason, never able to. I want to let you know how sorry I was for the loss of your dad and all your pain and sufferings you’ve had to deal with 💗 When you’re ‘in it’ you can’t see what’s happening, it’s not until after you’ve gone through that you can look back and sometimes see what it meant. You are right, God is always with us, He has shown us the way, we too, ALL, have to go through it too, in one way or another. I’ve seen my mom suffer with glyoma brain tumor and die, then my dad from other health problems, then my sister of inflammatory breast cancer, and more recently my oldest sibling, my sister from Alzheimer’s at age 77. My son hadn’t made the best choices in his life, and it pains me to see him make mistake after mistake, but in those wrong choices, I’ve been blessed with 2 granddaughters and now with a different woman a grandson. They struggle to pay bills. I see our government help so many others, yet my own son can’t afford health insurance, but they say he earns too much for health care help. That’s why he didn’t marry the first girl, so they could get state health care for my granddaughters 😔 … then they split up, he hooked up with another girl right away and a year later she got pregnant after she said she could never get pregnant due to health issues 🙄 So, I just keep praying, and offering it all up and praying for their conversions and the salvation of their souls. Praying for peace that Our Blessed Mother Queen of Peace has been asking us to do. God bless you and continue to give you the graces you need in caring for your mom and family.
Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us!
Beautifully written. My kids are suffering too. There seems to be little acknowledgement of the epidemic of anxiety, depression and suicide in the young. A fellow mom said to me the other day “What did we do wrong?” It’s not us, it’s a culture which has lost the ability to connect & love. A workplace that is dependent on productivity at the expense of collaboration. A college culture being used to brain wash our children into thinking communism is a viable option & families that are torn apart.
God we need you. They kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
There are so many voices coming at them that aren’t Godly. We can do what we can do. God has them and we need to trust he wants them saved more than us!
THIS was one of your best written messages ever written! I’m so touched I am experiencing uncontrollable weeping as I write this. I have been feeling so lost, abandoned, un loved and confused these days. My friends are dying or sick, my one sibling will not speak to me because I spoke the truths of the church and the politics we are forced to endure, friends are few because everyone is afraid of catching a germ from each other still today! My existence is lonely in spite of having two adult kids and 4 grandchildren who I do not see often enough.
However through this post I have come to believe that God is here, He cares, and He is and always has Been in control! This is not our fault and our Lord will intervene and we must trust him as children do with their father!
Thank you!
Ginny
Prayers for you!
THIS was one of your best written messages ever written! I’m so touched I am experiencing uncontrollable weeping as I write this. I have been feeling so lost, abandoned, un loved and confused these days. My friends are dying or sick, my one sibling will not speak to me because I spoke the truths of the church and the politics we are forced to endure, friends are few because everyone is afraid of catching a germ from each other still today! My existence is lonely in spite of having two adult kids and 4 grandchildren who I do not see often enough.
God will see us through
God is with you!
Thank you!
Dear Susan, I always look forward to read your posts, they are always timely for me, and give me a great deal of peace. Thank you. I hope you won’t take this in a wrong way, it is the point where you mention watching Janson Bagwell’s video on Halloween. You said in the following sentences that the religious Jews had asked Our Lord to leave their district. They were not religious Jews, they were some other tribe which raised swine. (Jews never touch anything unclean, as religious Jews to this day will not eat pork). I thought it important to say something,I hope you are not offended . I will pray for you, please pray for me and all those who read your writings. God bless you, Tanya
I am not offended at all. Thanks for the correction. I will fix it and I misunderstood what he said. He didn’t say Jews. And I should know better 🙂
Poor you; poor me; poor us…
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will see God”…
Blessed are the poor in spirit for their’s is the Kingdom of God
Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God
I stand corrected. Thank you!
Even better though – “…is the kingdom of God”!!!
…Rom 8:18-25
Brothers and sisters:
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing
compared with the glory to be revealed for us.
For creation awaits with eager expectation
the revelation of the children of God;
for creation was made subject to futility,
not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it,
in hope that creation itself
would be set free from slavery to corruption
and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now;
and not only that, but we ourselves,
who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
we also groan within ourselves
as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
For in hope we were saved.
Now hope that sees for itself is not hope.
For who hopes for what one sees?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.
You’ve touched on a lot of reasons people have left the Catholic church for the more “hands on” Protestant approach or the New Age. We began our “stripping” as a family 14 years ago. I sadly came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church offers little to no help when you’re in the fire. If not for my belief and love of Jesus in the Sacraments, I would’ve left also. That realization in itself caused a terrible grief. I look around at Mass now and wonder how many people are suffering in a spiritual darkness, looking for even a pin head of hope or help, and are left having to listen to social justice, political, or worse homilies about the need for money. I’ve noticed there is a lot of Shame involved, also. As though the Church is predominantly for the strong and self sufficient. They are good at taking, but not at giving. The pain is immense when you’re homeless and broke and the priest is laughing and promoting a party at $100.00 per person and everyone is clapping. The sense of shame, isolation, fear is real.
So in my pondering I feel the Lord say He will purify His Church by destroying all the man made edifices that have been built over His foundation. They have obscured His divine presence, have taken precedence over His Truth, and caused His sheep to be led astray. We will worship the Lord in Spirit and in Truth one day, when all of the man made nonsense is torn down. I don’t think we even realize how very far away we have drifted given this current Church is all most of us know. Once you’re stripped and begin to see and know the Lord more intimately, you desire that He tears it down.
A word of spiritual advice for others is if you are in the midst of the fires, or in the winepress, know that your vocation is God’s will. Stick to it. If a wife and mother, do your very best right there. It is God’s will. If a husband and father and provider…same. 20 years ago our priest once said at daily Mass that if our houses were a mess and chaotic that we should not be at daily Mass until we had our home in order because that was God’s will and where we would grow in holiness. It stuck with me, and took years to understand. It is wisdom, however. It is God who makes us holy. We do not make ourselves holy. He may set you apart to do just that. He may sit you right down in your home and take everything else away to perfect you for your good and the good of your family. Try to cooperate with that through prayer and fortitude, perseverance. Even in the midst of the raging storm.
Also, although it can be shocking and wounding, remember that we have at some time prayed for God to “make us holy”….the methods can be completely foreign and cause immense pain and grief. It can at times seem cruel and totally contrary to what we think we know about Mercy. Keep praying in the midst of it. It’s very humbling.
The Lord has placed you on my heart numerous times Susan while praying. Know that He cares, loves, and is providing for you even in the darkness. ❤️
Thank you. And yes I too feel the man made edifices will be torn down. One day I felt I was shown how corrupt a generation we are. It was hard to bear. I do think it will take an act of God to reveal because I told God I didn’t see the way out but I knew he knows the way.
God bless you too.