Monday's Mourning Ministry - Safely Home / In Better Hands Now ~Natalie Grant

Monday's Mourning Ministry

Safely Home

~

In Better Hands Now

~Natalie Grant

Safely Home

I am home in Heaven, dear ones

Oh so happy and so bright

There is perfect joy and beauty

In this everlasting light

All the grief and pain are over

Every restless tossing passed

I am now at peace forever

Safely home in Heaven at last

Did you wonder how I so calmly

Trod the valley of the shade?

Ah but the love of God illumined

Every dark and fearful glade

And He came Himself to meet me

In the way so hard to tread

And with His arm to lean on

Could I have one doubt or dread?

Then you must not grieve so sorely

For I love you dearly still

Try to look beyond Earth's shadows

Pray to trust our Father's will

There is work still waiting for you

So you must not idly stand

Do it now while life remaineth

You shall rest in our Father's land

When the work is all completed

He will gently call you home

Oh the rapture of that meeting

Oh the joy to see you come!

-- Author unknown

In Better Hands Now

~Natalie Grant

It's hard to stand on shifting sand
It's hard to shine in the shadows of the night
You can't be free if you don't reach for help
And you can't love if you don't love yourself

But there is hope when my faith runs out
'Cause I'm in better Hands now

It's like the sun is shining
When the rain is pouring down
It's like my soul is flying
Though my feet are on the ground

So take this heart of mine, there's no doubt
I'm in better Hands now

I am strong, all because of You
I stand in awe of every mountain that You move
For I am changed, yesterday is gone
I am safe from this moment on

And there's no fear when the night comes 'round
I'm in better Hands now

It's like the sun is shining
When the rain is pouring down
It's like my soul is flying
Though my feet are on the ground

So take this heart of mine, there's no doubt
I'm in better Hands now

It's like the sun is shining
When the rain is pouring down
It's like my soul is flying
Though my feet are on the ground

It's like the world is silent
Though I know it isn't true
It's like the breath of Jesus
Is right here in this room

So take this heart of mine, there's no doubt
I'm in better Hands now
I'm in better Hands now

Picture: Thanks to @LillyAnn

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blqWtfloz3E

Wednesday's Woe - Spiral of Grief - Going Up or Down? ~Angie Prince with C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Wednesday's Woe

Spiral of Grief - Going Up or Down?

~by Angie Prince,

with C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Tonight all the hells of young grief have opened again; the mad words, the bitter resentment, the fluttering in the stomach, the nightmare unreality, the wallowed-in tears. For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?

How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say,

"I never realized my loss till this moment"?

The same leg is cut off time after time. The first plunge of the knife into the flesh is felt again and again.

~C. S. Lewis

*****

Yesterday, as Nathan came in from his new job, we began to talk. I was asking him what songs have ministered to him in his grief. (About that conversation, I will share more later.) He described some poignant moments he had had amidst some sweet music, sharing with me some of the heartfelt feelings he had had about Merry Katherine. Then he left the room.

Even though I had been grieving all day long (as I do everyday, tears coming here and there throughout each day), after my conversation with Nathan, somehow it hit me anew:

She is gone.... She is gone, and she's not coming back!

My heart was stabbed anew at such stark reality.

(How does this happen? I KNOW it's true: she died, and I have been grieving her now for 4 1/2 years, but then suddenly, I realize it anew in its bleak reality.)

Oh God, how do I live with this pain -- as bad as it is all the time -- and then it dive-bombs me with its abject starkness, again!

So, today I wrote this poem:

*****

Clouds of Gray, My Mainstay

It's become a novelty again ~

This realization that you're gone.

It wreaks its havoc once again:

Never... again... will you... come home...

The world outside is cloudy gray;

So too is the state of my heart...

The clouds outside may go away,

But never the ones in my heart.

And even though my heart e'er knows

You've gone away, n'er to return,

My mind plays tricks, forgets it knows,

Then recalls, sets my heart again t' churn...

(The mind cannot take such drastic loss ~

If so, how could it e'en function?

Continual recalls are my cross;

Grief becomes my divine unction.)

My baby girl, you've gone away,

In your place, only clouds of gray.

But soon one day, the Son will shine,

Give life t' this heart, now dead on th' vine...

Disperse Death's shadow, O Light Divine,

Join me anew to sweet baby o' mine!

Give us Your hope, with an eternal mind.

Pictures - thanks to FotoSearch.com

Poem - Clouds of Gray, My Mainstay - Angie Bennett Prince - 2/1/2011