Loss

This week a very good friend's mother, Susan, passed away and another friend, Angela, is in her final hours of this life. I was not particularly close to either of these women, but I am very much grieving the end of their time on earth for their family members whom I am close with. Susan has two grown children and an infant grandchild. Angela has a 6 year old daughter and 4 year old son. The thought of these children, whether young or old, continuing life without their mother's is truly heartbreaking. I wish there were more that I could do for my friends, but there isn't. What I can do is pray.

The prayer that has been in my heart and mind for these families is Psalm 139 (BCP version):

LORD, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.  

You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways.     

Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O LORD, know it altogether.     

You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me.    

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain to it.    

Where can I go then from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?     

If I climb up to heaven, you are there;  if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.     

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,     

Even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast.     

If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night,"    

Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.   For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.     

My body was not hidden from you, while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth.     

Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb; all of them were written in your book; they were fashioned day by day, when as yet there was none of them.     

How deep I find your thoughts, O God! How great is the sum of them!     

If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand; to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.        

Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God! You that thirst for blood, depart from me.     

They speak despitefully against you; your enemies take your Name in vain.     

Do I not hate those, O LORD, who hate you? and do I not loathe those who rise up against you?     

I hate them with a perfect hatred; they have become my own enemies.     

Search me out, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my restless thoughts.     

Look well whether there be any wickedness in me and lead me in the way that is everlasting.