Dear Friends,On behalf of my family, I want to express profound gratitude at the kind words, notes, and prayers you have offered as we mourn the passing of my Dad this week.
Grief is hard even under the most normal of circumstances and losing a loved-one is never easy. During this time of social-distancing our normal ways of comforting one another (big funerals, family dinners, long hugs) are not available.
And so while those tangible expressions are discouraged, the intangible means become all the more important. Long phone calls, handwritten letters, and funny memories shared over email, while not replacing the desire to be physically together, serve to remind us that we don’t have to face our grief alone.
Early on one Sunday morning, a group of women gathered together to make a journey. A man they had loved for years had died. In their grief, they walked together with the simple desire to say a proper goodbye. They were concerned that the stone blocking the tomb would be immovable. They didn’t quite know what they were going to do about it, except that they would do it together.
In this time of social-distancing, this Easter will look and feel different. But remember that even though we are not physically together, we journey in spiritual communion with those women; who walk in grief expecting an immovable stone but find something that changes their lives forever.
I hope you join us online this Sunday at 10:00 a.m. to remember what those women found: a stone rolled away, an empty tomb, and the world-changing news that death ends in life!
Grace and Peace,
Ricky