Monday, February 28, 2011

How Do I Find Empathy

...for a situation I've never faced?

Tomorrow evening I will be meeting with the parents and siblings of a young man who died of a heroin overdose. Tragically, it was his parents who found his body. I was with this same family on a much happier occasion, a wedding, about three years ago.

I have children and grandchildren and even though we did lose a granddaughter who died in utero, I cannot begin to understand the grief this family must be experiencing. I know that all the "why" questions don't really have answers and any feeble attempt at an answer doesn't really offer comfort.

This is the hard part of ministry--looking into the eyes of mourning parents as they struggle to accept the decisions made by their flesh and blood. I'll have to trust God to give me the words to say, because I'm not sure I have any of my own.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,  
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to search and a time to give up"

Blessings,
Ken

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