Consoling One Another in the Midst of Loss

For more than two years, Marilyn had courageously fought leukemia. And she had help. She had the love and support of her friends, her parents, and her husband, Rob. However, after a couple of years, Marilyn died of leukemia. And she was only 30 years old. Her husband, Rob, was grateful for many friends who had provided support, showed they cared and helped in many ways.

But he was badly shaken by a number of friends who did absolutely nothing, really, other than to send a signed sympathy card. In his words, I saw the same cards over and over, and they all said deep sympathy on the front, and they had a verse inside, and they just simply signed their names. They wrote nothing about my wife or various aspects of how she had affected their lives or influenced their lives or made their lives better.

They wrote nothing about how they remembered her or how they experienced her. He said, I read the signatures, and I felt really next to nothing. Another story. Back in 1995, Tammy Thompson's two-year-old son, Dale, died. It was an unfortunate accident. He drowned two days after he had been found underwater in a spa. And she said in her own words, to my shock, many of the people I had expected to be supportive and helpful under that circumstances were actually conspicuous by their absence. She said, it caused me great pain because when I needed help and comfort so badly, I felt that my friends had become fair-weather friends.

She wasn't really comforted by her friends, and so she sought help from books. And not finding comfort in books, she actually eventually wrote her own book. She wrote a book called, A Friend in Grief, How to Help a Bereaved Parent. Tammy went on to say, in the five years since my son died, I've come to realize that the majority of cases, lack of concern, wasn't the issue. It wasn't the lack of concern. In fact, it was concern itself, though it was misguided, that caused the lack of support because people were so unsure of what to say to me that they didn't say anything.

One last example here before I get to the heart of the message this morning. A few months after Irene lost her eldest son, he was age 17 when he died in a skiing accident, a friend dropped by with some champagne and a couple of long-stemmed roses and some ribbons that were tied on the stems of the road glasses because she was trying to help her friend feel better. It was Irene's well-meaning friend's way of trying to say, it's time to be good again. It's time to move on.

But you know, her timing, even though it was a friend, her timing wasn't right. Irene wasn't ready for that, is basically what she recalls. I'd lost my son. How could I have good times? How could I think of moving forward? At the time, she said, my friend was really out of touch with what I was feeling at that time. Further, for you and I to reach out to someone, someone who's grieving, someone who's going through difficulty, somebody that's going through pain, someone who's going through the loss of some kind, the loss of a spouse, the loss of a friend, the loss of a family member, it's not easy.

It's not simple. And sometimes it's complicated, and sometimes we're not sure exactly what to do. This is an observation by one particular sociologist. Her name is Margaret Mead, and she said this. She said, when a person is born, we celebrate. And when they marry, we jubilate. But when they die, we act as if nothing has happened. In society, we don't know how, or we haven't been trained how, or we haven't been taught how to handle loss.

You know, we're taught to acquire things, but we're never necessarily taught how to lose them. And so in the process of losing, in a sense, something feels wrong or something doesn't feel natural. So, brethren, today what I'd like to do is discuss with you the critical need of facing loss and offering some suggestions on how to console those who have experienced significant losses in their life, as we all do, or as we all have, or as we all most certainly will, because it is a part of the human experience.

I think most of us desire, when there's something that we know someone's got a loss, we have a desire to reach out, we have a desire to console, we have a desire to comfort. But sometimes we just don't know how. So the title of the message today is, Consoling One Another in the Midst of Loss. Consoling one another in the midst of loss. You know, we've lost a loved one here, Jean Ann Hollow, a special person in our congregation. She was a wife, she was a mother, she was a friend, she was our spiritual sister.

And we know we have lost special people in other congregations as well. And some of you here have lost loved ones. We lost Gail Baylor, lost her husband Bill in the Southern Minnesota congregation. Marlene Hopple lost her husband Bob in the La Crosse congregation. And I know that you've lost a father here, recently, in the congregation here.

So how do we console others? How do we help others? Let's begin in the Scriptures by going to Luke chapter 15. Let's go there first. Luke chapter 15. Let's start there. Because here Jesus Christ uses the experience of loss to illustrate a very important point. Luke chapter 15 and verse number 3.

Luke chapter 15 and verse number 3. Jesus is speaking a parable to them and he says in verse 4, What man of you having a hundred sheep? If he loses one of them, he doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it.

Brethren, he's not necessarily happy with the ninety-nine that are left, but he's unhappy with the one that is lost. It's missing. And he's out looking for the one that's gone and trying to find it. Verse number 5. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. Perhaps you can imagine this. The shepherd is out searching for his lost sheep and finally he finds it and he lifts it up on his shoulders and he carries it back to safety.

And he and the sheep are rejoicing. Verse number 6. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors and he says to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. Now perhaps you've experienced something like this in your own family where you've lost maybe a pet. You've lost a dog, you know, or you're walking along and you see a billboard stapled to a phone power line or telephone pole that says, Lost dog who answers to the name of sugar.

Or a lost cat. And so there's some household out there that is without something that's very valuable to them. And sometimes it's more serious because we're talking about a human being, whether it's a child that's missing or whether it's a senior citizen that's missing. And when they find that person, then there's joy.

Verse number 8 here. It says, Or what woman having ten silver coins if she loses one coin does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search diligently until she finds it. Again, she's not happy because she's got nine coins that are left, but she's unhappy because there's one coin that is lost, that is missing.

I've got a hand out here, brother. We're going to talk a little bit about loss. I've got a hand out here. Maybe I could have Mr. Holub if you wouldn't mind and also, Eric. I think there's enough for one copy for everyone. Is there any extra you can get into me afterwards?

I've got a hand out here, and we talk about loss. We're talking about here, I don't know if you've heard of this or not, of what you're getting in front of you. The side I'm going to focus is two-sided, but I'm going to focus on the side that says the home's stress scale. The home's stress scale. You may or may not be familiar with it. The second side, we'll cover a little bit later on in the message, but we're going to focus on the home's stress scale, at least initially, as we talk about loss. It lists significant losses that people can experience in their life. There's all kinds of losses, brother, and all kinds of stressors, all kinds of situations that can cause significant stress in our lives. This particular stress scale identifies some of those types of things. I'm going to mainly focus on losses that we experience, and not just the stressors, but mostly the losses. You'll notice, even towards the bottom of the chart there, it says vacations. It's a source of stress. That's a surprise to me. It's a 13. A small mortgage or a car loan is a 17. A change in your residence, where you live, or a change in the school that you go to, that's a 20. Of course, then you could have trouble with your boss, or the beginning or ending of a school situation, or your spouse starts or stops working, and so on. So these are examples here. Notice the major stressor. The most difficult thing of all is at the very top of the chart, and it's given an index of 100, and that's the death of a partner or of a spouse. Well, there's the divorce, the death of a marriage, I suppose, that had high hopes and dreams, and that's, I think, comes in at a 73, or the separation from a spouse, and that comes in at 55.

And so we see that all of these losses are not the same, from a death of a loved one, to the death of a spouse, to the ending of a marriage. We see that they're not all the same. And there's other kinds of deaths, too. You know, what's not even listed here, unless it comes under death of a close relative or death of a family member, is I have talked to parents that have lost a child, and that is just devastating. It's just devastating. I don't see it here on this particular chart, but I'm guessing that would be near the top. Now, if you look at the very bottom, it talks about, it says scores of 300 or more in a 12-month period. And we're talking about cumulative things here over the course of a year. But if there's a score of 300 or more, that there is an 80% chance that you could have a major illness. So these types of things can actually even affect us physiologically. So they're cumulative, and we have to cope with them to be aware of them. And if we're aware of them, maybe we can have a better understanding of what's going on. Because when we understand these things, that these things are just not water off a duck's back. They're not. These things affect us, and these things have an impact on us.

Now, it's not on the bottom of the page, and it's up to you if you'd like to write this down. You can if you're interested. As that they say, the key is to keep stress at 100, between 100 and 150, or less, in a 12-month period. To try to keep stress at between 100 and 150 in a 12-month period. But how do you do that? Because that's not necessarily always possible. There are things that we just don't have control over. There's just some things that we can't control. But with God's help, if we seek it, we can begin to manage some of those things. So the point is that all losses aren't the same, and they don't affect us the same. When we experience the death of a loved one, or the death of a spouse, or the death of a parent, or a child, or going through some of these losses, they don't affect us all the same, but they do have an effect on us. Let's go over to Job chapter 1. Job chapter 1 and verse 1. We're going to read about some of the calamities that beset him. He was a servant of God by the name of Job. It's a pretty familiar story here. And we will see that there was a lot that happened to him. Several of these types of losses actually happened to him in a very short period of time. Job chapter 1 and verse number 1.

It says, there was a man in the land of us whose name was Job. And so we hear a description of the kind of man that he was. It says he was a man that was blameless and upright, he feared God, and he shunned evil. So here was a God-fearing man that was actually trying to live by God's Word, His standards. And God had really blessed him quite a bit for that. In verse number 2, he had seven sons and three daughters that were born to him. So he had a lot of children, ten of them, seven boys, and three girls. And furthermore, we're told about the value of some of the things that God had blessed him in, some of the ways that God had helped him in the blessings. In verse number 3, also his possessions were 7,000 sheep. Now that's a lot of sheep. You know, I don't know what sheep would have been worth back in that day and age. I don't know that, but they, you know, it seems like they had significant value. They certainly have significant value today. We bought one leg of lamb for the night to be much observed, and it was rather pricey. And that was only one of the four legs, you know, that made up that animal. And it wasn't cheap. So if it was anywhere close to what it is today, these were very valuable animals. All right. And he had 3,000 camels. And what would have been the value of 3,000 camels? Well, they were a very, very important valuable commodity back in that time. In fact, they were known as the ships of the desert. The ships of the desert.

In fact, with camels, they could carry 3 to 500 pounds of food or whatever it is that you needed to haul. 3 to 500 pounds over great distances in very arid climates with very little water. So they were considered valuable possessions. Can you imagine owning 3,000 ships in a sea? You've got 3,000 ships at the desert. Also, he had 500 yoke of oxen. Well, what would they have been worth? The fact that Job had so many oxen implies that he was cultivating the soil. That not only did he have all of this livestock, but he also was trying to grow food, and you used the oxen to cultivate the soil. So there was a large number of oxen that would have constituted great wealth. He had 500 female donkeys. How much were they worth? Well, they were worth a lot. In fact, female donkeys at that time are being mentioned here as having been in common use to ride upon. That that, instead of having to walk, that that's how they would get from one place to another without having to walk. They were riding these donkeys. And so, in a way, that's quite a blessing here, that he had 500 female donkeys. We may not think of it this way today, but it was like having a Chevrolet, a car. He had 500 of these. And it says, in a very large household. So, we already know that he had a lot of children, but we're also talking about the fact that he had a lot of servants. He had a very large household to look after all of these animals. So this man was the greatest of all the people of the East. So he was very blessed from Scripture. We know that. He was very blessed. He was a God-fearing man. But then, trouble begins. Let's drop down to verse number 13. And again, this is not a story. This is not a parable. This is a real event that happened. This is reality in the life of this man. Verse number 13. Now, there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house. And a messenger came to Job and said, the oxen were plowing. So we know that they were being used to cultivate the land. The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them. So you've got all of these livestock that are in close proximity. The donkeys were right beside them. They were close at hand. Verse 15. When the Sabeans raided them and took them away. They're all gone, in other words. And indeed, they've killed the servants with the edge of the sword. And I alone have escaped to tell you. In verse 16, while he was still speaking, another came and said, the fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants. So those that were attending to the sheep and then consumed them, they're all gone. And I alone have escaped to tell you. And while he was still speaking, another came and said, the Chaldeans formed three bands. And they've raided the camels. And they've taken them away. And they've killed the servants, in other words, the ones who took care of the camels. With the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you. And while he was still speaking, another came and said, your sons and daughters. Now, he's heard all about the oxen. He's heard all about the sheep. He's heard all about the camels. And those servants who attended to them. And now it comes down to his own children.

Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in your oldest brother's house. And suddenly a great wind, some kind of straight wind, tornado, it doesn't say, came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house and it fell on the young people and they're gone. They're all dead. And I alone have escaped to tell you.

Brethren, can you imagine? Can you imagine? I can't. How would you have reacted? I don't know how I would have reacted. I think I would have just had a meltdown. I think I would have just lost it. See how Job reacts. Verse number 20. Job arose and he tore his robe and he shaved his head. Brethren, that's how grief and mourning were expressed in that day and age. He tore his robe, he shaved his head, he fell to the ground and he worshipped the creator God. And he said, verse 21, I naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Wow. He worshipped God. He blessed his name. That was his prayer. And then he concluded by saying the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Verse number 22. And in all this, Job did not sin nor did he charge God with wrong. Now let's go over to Job chapter 2 and verse 7, just a few pages over. Job chapter 2 and verse number 7. I think most of us know that this wasn't the way the story ended, that there's more to the story. We think, wow, in chapter 1 he handled all of these losses pretty well. But if you know the story, you know that's not the end of the story. Because next, after experiencing all of these losses, now he loses his health. Let's notice that in Job chapter 2 and verse number 7. It says, And Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and he struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Are there words from top to bottom? I don't know how many of you have had boils in your lifetime over the years. I've only had a couple myself, personally. But I had one that was kind of right under my armpit. And if I put my arm down and rubbed against the side of my body, it was just really, really painful. I imagine some of you have had boils over the years. And this was just one boil. And Job had these from head to toe. So that pain, it gets all red, it gets fiery, it's extremely sensitive, it's like a ball of fire, it's sort of a touch. And you just want it to end. You want it to end. And I don't want to be too graphic, but it gets infected, and there's a pus and a oozing that comes out of it. And it's so painful. So you can imagine what he's going through. Verse number 8, and he took for himself a pot-shirt with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. So let's talk about what he's gone through in a very short period of time. He's lost his wealth, his livestock, the camels, the oxen, the donkeys, the sheep. He's lost his servants. He's lost a good part of his family. He's lost 10 children, all 10. He's lost his health. I guess you could say he's lost his position that he had in the society and the culture in which he lived. And even in a sense, he was reduced to the ash heap of life. And in a sense, that's where we get that expression today, I think, is where it comes from, is that where Job found himself, he found himself in the midst of ashes. And almost everything else was gone.

How would you or I handle that? You know, I can't imagine, and yet it's here in the Scriptures. It's here for us to learn from. Let's take a look at another example of someone who lost a lot. Let's look at the example of Ruth. Let's go back to Ruth 1 and verse 1. Ruth 1 and verse 1. Right after the book of Judges here.

We read about, we've read about Job and now, and we'll come back to Job in a little bit. But now, let's look at a woman that went through the loss of much. Her name was Naomi. You know, Job's events happened suddenly, but for Naomi, it wasn't so sudden, but it was just as devastating. Let's look at what happened to her. We'll start right in chapter 1 and verse number 1. It says, Now it came to pass in the days when the Judges ruled that there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. And these types of things happen, you know. There's a famine, there's a lack of rain. You have to make decisions to do something for your family to survive. Sometimes you have a little recourse, you have to relocate. And that's exactly what they did. And Naomi was the wife of this man. Verse number 2. The name of the man was Eli-Malek, and the name of his wife was Naomi. And the two sons were Meilon and Chileon, and they were Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. And they went to the country of Moab, and they remained there. Verse 3. Then Amalek, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. Now, it just wasn't bad enough that you're in a foreign country. You're not in your homeland. You had to move, and we know that can be stressful. You have to always totally familiar things with things when you go to another country, and the way that they live, and the culture that they have. But then your husband dies. And that makes conditions a lot harder. No doubt, she consoled herself with the fact she still had two sons that were there, part of the family, to look out for her. But you may know the story as we go on here to verse number 4. Now they, referring to Naomi's sons, they took wives of the women of Moab, the name of the one wife was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth, and they dwelt there about ten years. So they were about ten years in this part of the world, or at least Naomi was. And then both Malon and Chillion also died, so the woman survived her two sons and her husbands. You know, I can't put myself in Naomi's shoes. Imagine if you were in her shoes, you know, that you talk about tragedy. You've lost your spouse who you were close to, and you've lost your only two children.

And so this was probably right off the charts if you want to think about what she was having to go through. Let's jump now to verse number 13. Verse number 13 here. And she's talking now to her daughters-in-law. And she says, would you wait for them to be grown? She says, you know, am I going to remarry and then raise up two more sons and have them to grow up so that you can carry on this family name? She says, you know, are you going to wait for them to be grown? You know, would you restrain yourselves that long from having husbands, is what she's saying? Know my daughters, and she refers to them interestingly as her daughters. She says, for it grieves me very much. So, brethren, she was in grief. She was in grief. It grieves me very much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. So she was taking this pretty hard, and rightly so. I think it was difficult, and it's understanding that she would be going through this. She returns to her homeland, and we're going to jump to verse number 21 here. It tells her state of mind when she comes back home. Verse number 21. She said, I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty.

Why do you call me Naomi? So the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me. She basically says, call me Mara, which means bitter. She says that in verse 20. She says, call me Mara, because I am bitter. So, brethren, this wasn't easy. This was difficult for her. She was struggling. She was in bitterness. She was in a part of her life that was really, really hard.

Let's notice what Jesus Christ has to say over in Matthew, chapter 5. I'm going to go back to Matthew, chapter 5, and look at the direct instructions that Jesus Christ shares with us here. This is in the Sermon on the Mountain that he gave.

Matthew, chapter 5. Also known as the B Attitudes, the blessed are those who do this or do that. Jesus has something to share with us here in the book of Matthew, chapter 5. We'll pick it up here in verse number 1.

And seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him, and he opened up his mouth, and he taught them. So he shared some things with them. Jesus is trying to teach them. He's teaching his disciples and anyone else that was part of the multitudes that may have been present. Let's jump to verse number 4. Jesus said to his disciples, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Brethren, that's a scripture I think that we don't think a lot about. But there's going to come a time, if it hasn't already, there's going to come a time in our life when we'll mourn. When we'll grieve. When we'll suffer loss. And Jesus said in a sense that blessed are those who mourn. You know, I suppose this presupposes that we know what that means, to mourn.

Because many people in this day and age, they don't know how. You know, sometimes we're told, particularly as young boys, that we shouldn't cry. You know, that we should buck up, you know. Whether we're young boys or men, don't cry. We hold back, in a sense. We go into some denial.

And we never really express the grief that we feel. But Jesus tells us here in the scripture that blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who grieve because they will be comforted. It's almost like a stage that we have to go through, that we have to grieve. And if we do, we'll be comforted. We'll be blessed. It's a stage we have to go through. It's a process that we have to go through that we have to mourn. And then, eventually, we will be comforted. You know, on this handout that I handed out to you on the other side here, it talks about the grief process.

A grief process. That a lot of us, if not most of us, actually go through a process. It's a process that we go through. And that's what it talks about, that it is a process. And sometimes, we may want to skip, or try to skip, one of these different things here, and try to speed things along. But it's almost as if we can't do that. We might want to skip steps and hope that things will get better sooner.

But if we don't go through some of these stages, sometimes we don't get to the part where it says number 11, where we begin to grow, and we begin to change, and we begin to become different. And then we have memories, as it says in number 12 there. So we look at these 12 different points here, talking about a grief process. It addresses how we react and how we address grief.

It's a process. And you know, the first thing is shock. The first thing is shock. And the second is guilt. Thirdly, it talks about anger here. Fourth, it talks about loneliness. Fifth is depression. And then self-hitty, and then emotional expression, and fear, and panic, and blame, and this distresses, and then eventually growth. And then finally, memories. And sometimes we don't understand this process, and we don't understand how long it can take to grieve, to go through.

And it's actually a lot longer than what people think. You know, there was a university here that conducted a survey, and people were asked this question. How long do you think it should take for someone to get over the death of a loved one? How long do you think it should take for someone to get over the death of a loved one? I was surprised by some of the answers here.

Here's some of the answers that some people gave. 24 hours. 48 hours. 72 hours. A week tops is one of the answers that's here. I'm guessing that they hadn't gone through the loss of a loved one. Further, in fact, when a loved one dies, it takes a whole lot longer than that.

It can take a year, or two, or three. You know, it depends on the person. We know that. It really depends on the person. It can take a long time. In fact, in a way, you only adjust because you are never the same again. You never really get over it. It's kind of compared to losing an arm. You know, you learn eventually to, even though you don't get used to it, you learn to work with what you have. In a sense, you learn to cope.

You learn to live without it. If you ask somebody that's lost a loved one, they'll tell you. When people go through a loss, and they lose somebody that is near and dear to them, the first reaction is shock. And you know, that's really possibly a gift, brethren, that God has given to us is shock. You can ask any number of people that have experienced that, even when a loved one is anticipated to die, that you know that it's coming, that you think that you're prepared for it, is that when it actually happens, it's like a two-by-four that hits you right between the eyes.

If you go into shock, it's usually the first reaction.

The second is guilt. It's on the list here, guilt. You know, a lot of us will say, if only I had done this, or if only I had done that. If only I had loved them more, if only I could have done more, I should have done more. We second-guess ourselves, and so we begin to have guilt that maybe I should have done something differently.

And then comes anger. You know, why did they leave me? Why did they leave me with all of these young children? How could they leave me? This isn't what I expected. This isn't the way I envisioned our life going forward. Anger is another one of the steps that you often have to go through, and then the next is loneliness and so on. And so many people have to go through these steps. The steps of grieving. And it takes time. And it's just not necessarily in order. You can stop at one point and then have to go back. It's just not in chronological order. You can go back and forth. There's an ebb, there's a flow. We're all different in a sense, but we do have some similarities. Sometimes you can get down the line and almost have to go back to step number one.

So these are things, brethren, that may be helpful to understand. The reality of what can happen to somebody who is going through grief, that takes time, knowing that it takes time to heal and knowing that there can be setbacks. Brethren, that can help us. And it helps us to try to comfort someone who's going through something like that. We can help them better if we know how it works.

Now it does say that, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. So let's look at three principles here in consoling and being comforted here that are mentioned in God's Word. There's probably more than three, but those are the ones I'm going to mention here from Scripture. They're basically fundamental sources of being consoled or receiving comfort that you and I, God would want us to be familiar with so we can understand and help others. The first fundamental source we can find in 2 Corinthians chapter 1. So let's go there. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. And we'll pick it up here in verse 1. And this is really, brethren, a very beautiful passage and one that's encouraging and strengthening as we look at it. 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse number 1.

It says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God and Timothy our brother, to the church of God, which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in Acacia. Verse number 2. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. Brethren, there is something here very meaningful here. We're talking about God, the God, the only God, and that He is a God of all comfort. The God that we serve, the God of the universe, the God that cares for us, the God that loves us, the God that we see in Scripture. It speaks of Him as being a God of all comfort, and that's a beautiful description of what God is. You know, that's the hope that we have when we're hurting. We have a God that refers to Himself not only the Father, but He is the God of all comfort. Verse 4, who comforts us. So that's the responsibility that God the Father takes personally with His children. He comforts us.

The great God who we serve, the great God of the universe, the God of all comfort, the Father of mercies comforts us in all of our tribulations. Why? So that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. You know, what a blessing that we can go before our Heavenly Father, and we can be comforted when we're suffering, when we're in difficulty, when we're in stress, when we're under duress, and when we've suffered loss, and when we're grieving.

We have a God that we can go to. We have a Father that we can go to. So He's the first source of consoling and comfort, and it's through prayer and communication with Him and asking for His help and His mercies and His comfort. And He will deliver in times of distress, times of difficulty and pain and loss. Brother, I think I've told you the story over the years of my own father-in-law. My wife smothered. His name was Jim Jenkins. I don't know how many of you knew him, but he had a very difficult trial and it resulted in taking his life. He had some cancer that was discovered in the top of his head, and they operated.

They tried to remove it. They thought maybe they got it all, but they didn't. Cancer cells traveled, and eventually it went into his face, of all things. On his face, there was a malignant growth, and it got about the size of half a grapefruit. Then it started on his other side, and it was very, very painful. It was extremely painful. And you know, He took it to God.

He said, God, this is more than I can handle. I mean, it's like that's the only thing He could think about was the pain that He was enduring. And He took it to God, and He said every time He prayed that prayer to God, that the pain lessened. Every time. The pain lessened so that He could endure what He was going through. And so, brother, we see that we have a God of comfort. That's what He does. And so He was able to make it comfortable enough for Him to endure. Brother, we have several examples. We have the example of Job and Naomi that we talked about. And we have other examples of people that we know.

So we have this first source of comfort. It's God, our Heavenly Father. Let's look at a second source of consoling and comfort. Over in Romans, chapter 15. Romans, chapter 15, verse number 1. We'll start right at the beginning of the chapter. Romans, chapter 15, and verse number 1. It says, We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the week, meaning weaknesses, shortcomings, or failings of the week, and not to please ourselves.

Rather than we live today in a world that's probably more self-centered than it's ever been in my lifetime. And there are times, it seems, when people are very self-centered, they're only looking after themselves. It seems like selfishness almost runs at an all-time high. And Paul says that we who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the week. Now, I won't ask for a show of hands, but how many of us here are strong?

And which one of us are weak? You know, there are times when I'm stronger at certain times than we are at others. It just kind of depends on what's happening at the time. It depends on our own circumstances and our own situations. Because it can come and go at times when we feel strong and when we don't.

Verse number 2. Let each of us please our neighbor for his good, leading to edification. So leading to building up and not tearing down. Verse number 3. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me. For whatever things were written before were written for our learning. So the Scriptures are here for our learning. Notice that we, through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.

So that's the second fundamental source of comfort, brethren. It's the Scriptures, the Word of God. Especially those Scriptures that talk about this topic, that talk about consoling and comfort. That we have here from the Scriptures. Well, which Scriptures? Well, I suppose it depends on who you are and where you want to turn. But for many of us, we often go to the book of Psalms because we know the difficulties that David went through. The trials, the difficulties that he went through. And if you read through the book of Psalms, you know that he had tremendous trials and tremendous difficulties in his life.

He suffered losses. He suffered pain. He suffered circumstances that he found himself in.

I'm just going to refer for time here to Psalm chapter 34 verse 18, where it says, The Lord is near to those that have a broken heart. That God is near to those. He's going to be there to comfort. As we go through the Scriptures and find places where consoling and comfort is mentioned. And you know, sometimes it's the word consolation, which is a type of comfort. These are all things, brethren, that we can look at that can help comfort us. So we see this second source of consolation or comfort in the Scriptures, whether it be the Old Testament Scriptures, whether it be the New Testament Scriptures that talk about this. These are Scriptures that are there for our learning to console and comfort us. So that's the second fundamental source of comfort or consolation. It's the Scriptures themselves that can help us. Let's go to the third source. That's in 2 Corinthians. The third source of consolation or comfort that we can find. Second Corinthians, chapter 7. Let's go there.

Let's notice Paul, who went through a lot of trials of his own.

Second Corinthians, chapter 7 and verse 4. He says, Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort. You know, with all the things that he went through with his history, with all the difficulties, with all the trials, with all the pain, he said, I am filled with comfort. You know, I don't know. Maybe you and I could ask the question, when was the last time that we thought we were just filled with comfort, or that we were just full of it? I was running over. So Paul is saying here, I am filled with comfort.

He says, I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. Wow! Joyful? In tribulation? You know, it's hard to imagine. Why? Verse number 5. For indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side, and outside were conflicts, and inside were fears. But nevertheless, God, who comforts the downcast, so Paul understood this first principle, nevertheless, God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. Brethren, Titus comforted Paul. God utilized Titus to help comfort Paul. Verse number 7. And not only by his coming, but also by the consolation. Again, that's a synonym for comfort, consolation, consoling. But also by the consolation with which he told us of your earnest desire and your mourning and your zeal for me. He said, that encouraged me to know that you were thinking about me, and you were praying for me, and you were mourning for me, and that you had a zeal for me. And so, brethren, we can be consolers, we can be comforters for each other. So with that, I rejoice even more to know that you cared, in other words. So that meant a lot to Paul, to know that the brethren were thinking about him, praying for him, mourning for him, zealous for him. Let's drop down to verse number 13. Therefore, we have been comforted in your comfort, and we rejoice exceedingly more for the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all. So, brethren, that's a third fundamental source of consolation or comfort. It's the brethren that we can be for each other. The brethren can comfort us, and we can comfort them, others. And not just the brethren, but sometimes it's our fellow man, it's the community. We saw that with Gene Ann, with Todd and the family, you know? So principally the brethren, but also friends and neighbors and associates and family and colleagues, people you know who relate to you and you relate to them. It's so important to have a circle of people to rely on to be there and to reach out in times of difficulty. Let me give you an example of how this can be done. This was a letter that was written several years ago to Ann Landers. It says, a few months ago you reprinted a letter, and I would like to promote that letter, this particular writer said. The letter goes on to share this. On May 11th, my lovely 25-year-old daughter Patty was killed in a car accident. On Monday after her death, I went to her office to clean out her desk, and while I was there, several of her co-workers came by to express their sympathy. All of the conversations ended with, if there's anything I can do. Well, a thought came to me that I would like to share with your readers. I told each one of those sympathetic co-workers that there was something that they could do. I asked them to write down their thoughts about my daughter and to mail them to me. I said, I didn't care whether those thoughts were about Patty, what she did, or how they felt about her, or some events. I didn't care whether they were thoughts about Patty, what she did, how they felt about her, or some event that they shared together. Anything. I told them that receiving the notes would give me a piece of Patty back to me. It would provide a glimpse of her life that I did not even know about as her mother.

The responses were heartwarming. To date, I received 30 letters from co-workers and friends, and when I begin to feel blue, I read those letters over and over, and I'm quoting her, and I am comforted.

Please suggest to your readers who are grieving that no words can express how much those letters have meant to me. They have gone a long way. For them, we can learn certain things, and that's something we can think about. We've had the recent loss, as I mentioned, of several members, and actually all three congregations, and actually people outside of our church area, the three church area that we know about, that have lost loved ones, that have lost spouses, and we've lost Jean Anne here. I usually put in the email announcements that we can send cards, and something to think about when we send a card is to say something about them. Say something about that person and about their life and how they had an impact that made a difference for you. So, something to think about as we go forward here. Something specific about how they touched our life.

I know how I felt when my father and mother died, and after the funeral, when we were going through the cards and we were reading them, the ones that made a little comment about how my dad had meant something to them or how my mother had meant something to them, made a huge difference. That comforted us. It made a difference. And, you know, whether it be a funny story or a characteristic or something they admired, I haven't forgotten those things to this day. Let's go back to Job, chapter 2.

Let's go back there.

And we're going to pick it up here in verse number 11. And let's learn there are things to do and learn that there are things not to do. There are things to do and things not to do. Sometimes we don't know what to do when we try to help someone who's grieving and we do nothing. There are some do's and there are some don'ts. Let's talk about some of those do's and don'ts here. Again, this isn't going to be an all-inclusive list here, but there are some books out there that can be helpful in knowing how to try to comfort someone who's grieving. But I want to share a few things here from the Scriptures. In Job 2, verse 11, you'll remember that several Job's friends came to comfort him because he was in a difficult time and his friends responded to the situation. Let's pick it up in verse number 11 of Job 2. It says, now when Job's three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place. They dropped everything and they came. There was Eliphaz, the Temanite, Bildad, the Shewite, and Zophar, the Nehemathite. They had made an appointment together to come and notice and to mourn with him. To mourn with him and to comfort him. You know, that was their two main objectives, to mourn with him and to comfort him. And they're both very important. Verse number 12, when they raised their eyes from afar, they did not recognize him. You know, he must have gone through a lot. They didn't recognize their friend. They lifted up their voices and noticed and they cried. They wept. They cried. And each one, just like Job had done earlier, they tore his robe, they sprinkled dust on his head towards heaven. And they sat down with him. They came when he had his greatest need. They sat down with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights and no one spoke a word. They didn't even speak to him. They just came and they cried with him for seven days.

You know, one of the do's, brethren, according to what I'm reading, is to be just to be there. You don't necessarily have to say much just to be there. The fact that you're there means a lot. And notice what it says. The friend said, For they saw that his grief was very great. They noticed that he was grieving and it was great. Now, if we would have just stopped in chapter one, we would have thought that Job handled this pretty well. He said, Naked, I came from the womb and naked, I will return to the earth. Worship God. Praise his name. We may have thought he handled that pretty well. But although we may have thought he handled this pretty well, this was really difficult. This was very, very difficult. We see his grief was very great. It was very difficult because what he had experienced was catastrophic. So his friends, they compare notes, they make arrangements to come, they come for seven days, they don't say anything, they look at him, and he looks at them, and they cry, and he cries. And as long as they said nothing, it was helpful. It was helpful to Job. The trouble began when they started to give advice to him. And now we start to touch on the don'ts, the things that we have to be very, very careful about what we say, because some things should not be said. So there are dos and don'ts. We'll hover a few of them here in just a moment. And I see I'm running out of time. This is a big topic, brethren, so I'm not going to cover all of the dos and don'ts, but I want to share a few things here. And I'll cover an example here. We've touched on the point that sometimes it's best not to say anything, but just to be there. We talked about a lady earlier by the name of Irene who'd lost a 17-year-old son in a skiing accident. Despite her state of mind, her friends and her family rallied around her. They tried to help her, but there was really one sister that was really the most helpful to her. You know all she did? She just came over the house and just stayed for a while. They didn't even hardly talk. They hardly talked at all. In fact, at times there was no conversation at all. She just came over, spent some time with her, and sometimes Irene, the mother who lost the son, would break down in tears. And so would her sister. They just cried together. It was hardly anything that was said. Irene said later, sometimes we never said a word, but that's exactly what I needed. That's all that I needed.

She was saying to me that she cared about me and about my son and that she would keep coming back, even if I didn't treat her the best or treat her like a guest. All she needed was someone to come by. Another example has happened to my wife many years ago before we were married. She was in the midst of a divorce proceeding. Her husband had been cheating on her, and eventually he left her and the two children. And in the midst of all this turmoil, she came home one day and nearly all the furniture was gone out of the house. He'd come and take it. Pretty much to take it. He'd been there, taken almost everything. And she was in total distress at that time. Her life was unraveling. There was no solid foundation. It was coming apart, and she was pretty much numb at that time in her life. And just at that time, a neighbor came and knocked on the door. There was a church member who'd been in the neighborhood and thought, you know, just to check and see how Jelinda was doing. And, you know, she had just been moved, possibly by God's Spirit. You know how that can move you sometimes? That maybe you should stop by. And it was just what Jelinda needed at that time in her life. And I think God sometimes moves us at the right time, and we want to be careful. In that sense, we don't want to come when someone is not wanting to visit. But in this particular case, it was just what she needed at the time. Let's go to Job 21, verse 1.

I'm going to talk a little bit more about the do's and don'ts here in a moment. But let's look here at Job 21, verse 1. Job's friends here were doing some of the don'ts here. Job 21, verse 1.

It says, then Job answered and said, Listen carefully to my speech, and let this be your consolation. Bear with me that I may speak, and after I have spoken, keep mocking. So things weren't going very well, were they?

And we'll skip the rest of the chapter, and let's go down to verse 34. Go down to verse 34 here.

How then can you comfort me with empty words, since falsehood remains in your answers? So they were doing okay when they were saying nothing, but now they began to give advice, and they were saying the wrong thing. And in fact, not only was it not beneficial, it was harmful. So we have to be careful, brethren, that we want to say the right thing and not the wrong thing. You know, I mentioned earlier about Tammy Thompson, who lost her two-year-old son. She'd written a book because she couldn't find comfort, and she shares something here in the book. This comes from a section of her book called The Dues and Don'ts for Supporting People. In other words, what to say and what not to say. So here's some of the don'ts. These are some basic things here, brethren, that we'll cover in the time that we have left. One of the don'ts is don't avoid the person. Don't avoid the grieving person. This is a time when they really need to know that you really do care about them, and there's nothing worse than being alone or deserted when you're most in need. You may not always know what to say, but just being there can mean a lot, so don't avoid them. There's a second don't. Don't fail to acknowledge that they have just lost their loved one. When you first see them after the death of their loved one, don't fail to acknowledge that this was someone who was very special to them. It will probably seem to them, if you don't say anything, that you're even denying the existence of someone very important to them. If you say nothing, you come across that you don't care. And so, this is someone that's been a big part of the story. And so, this is someone that's been a big part of their life, both past, present, and future. Number three, don't forget them after the funeral. Don't forget them after the funeral. Time and again, there's a lot of family and friends support for the first few days or so, which is very helpful. But after the funeral, people seem to assume that you're back to a normal life, and nothing is further from the truth. This can take years to get through. Afterwards, when everyone else has gone back to their normal life, you can find yourself very alone in an empty house with just memories and emotions.

Number four, don't expect them to just get over it. Don't expect them to just get over it. You don't ever get over the loss of someone who's been very, very close to you. It is just something you learn to live with. The loss is not only the relationship, it is the person. Know your spouse, your son, your daughter, your friend.

There are some important things that we should do. So let's go through some of the do's. We've covered four of the don'ts. Let's cover a few of the do's. Do let them express their grief in their own way. Do let them express their grief in their own way. Brethren, that is something that we have to let them do. Whether it's crying, whether it's talking about the person, or not talking about the person. Whether it's wanting to have people over, or whether it's not wanting to have people over. We have to let them express their grief in their own way. And whether they want to talk, or whether they don't want to talk about it. You know, everyone has their own way of expressing grief. Everyone has their own way of mourning. And we have to mourn. We have to grieve in order to get on the other side of it, brethren. Because expressing grief is healthy. And mourning is something that God says we have to walk through that. That's just the way that it is. And we all have our own way of expressing that mourning and that grief. But it's helpful when we do it. And it's necessary in whatever form that it takes for that person to get through that.

Another do. Number two. Do listen. Do listen to them. Listen when they talk. Listen carefully. Listen properly. Don't interrupt. It's okay to ask questions, but let them talk. Let them share what's on their mind. A third one is be patient. Be patient. Sometimes in our conversations with them, when they're having a hard time, they begin to cry, and they're having a hard time, and they're saying these words to us. And we feel we should say something. And we should fill up the gaps of the silence. And we feel we should say something like, oh, it's going to be okay, or things will get better. Or, you know, things will be all right. There's no need to cry. No, don't say that. There is a need to cry. And maybe things aren't going to be better in the short term, particularly. It's not necessarily the right thing to say. So let them talk. Let them talk or not talk. And if they break down and cry, rather than don't feel awkward, cry with them. There's a need to cry, and that's why they do it. Sometimes all we can do is cry when they cry. My father, when he was alive, he told me a story that I've never forgotten. I don't know exactly how old he was. Depending upon the family members we talked to, it could have been around the age of 12, possibly the age of 14 or so, maybe even a little older. He lost his dad. My father came from a large family, but he was the youngest. And so he lost his father. When his father was in his mid-fifties, I never knew my grandfather and my dad's side. And so my father lost his dad. He lost his dad. And he was really struggling at the funeral. He was really struggling. His name was Bob, but at that time in his life they called him Bobby. And he was really struggling. He had an aunt that came over to him and tried to comfort him. He told him just exactly what he needed to hear. He gave my father permission. She gave my father permission to cry. She said, Bobby, it's okay to cry. And he just buried his head in the bosom of that haunt of his, and he just sobbed uncontrollably. He had just lost his dad. He lost his father. And he needed to mourn. He needed to grieve, and he needed to cry.

Number four. I'm going to go a little overtime here. There are times, there are always times when people would rather be alone. We need to understand that. There are times when people would rather be alone. And sometimes that's hard for us to know. We don't always know whether we should leave them alone or whether we shouldn't. It's not always an easy thing to know what to do. And the easiest way to find out is to ask something like, Would you like company, or would you prefer to be alone? And it's okay to ask that question. And then we'll know. And then they know that we care enough to ask. And they'll know, and then we'll know what they prefer, because we're trying to serve them. Okay, let's go back to Job 42. Job 42. I'm going to refer you to page two of the grieve process here. Certain things we have to go through in the grieving process that sometimes we can't rush. Sometimes it takes time. But as you get to the bottom of the list and towards the end of the process, things can begin to change over time. It's just too bad we can't jump to the bottom of the list. That's just probably not going to happen. You know, we look at number 11 here. It talks about growth. And we begin to have memories as we go to number 12. The brethren is a lot of areas that we have to go through before we get to that point. But eventually things turned around for Job. We're going to read about that in a moment. It's a process to where he eventually got to this point. But first we have to grieve. And first we have to mourn. It's a tragedy. We ask, why did this happen to me? Could it have been different? Could I have prevent it? Because, you know, we focus on that initially. And then we begin to change over time. We go through a process of grieving. And then there's something on the other side. Job 42, verse 10. Here's what happened at the end of the book of Job after Job had improved tremendously. After his circumstances had gotten significantly better. Let's pick it up in verse number 10. And the Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Nearly everything, literally, through the livestock and everything except for the number of his children. That was the same. Verse number 11. Then all of his brothers, all of his sisters, and all of those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house and noticed and they consoled him and they comforted him for all the adversity that the Lord had brought upon him. And each one gave him a piece of silver and each a ring of gold. You know, even after his circumstances had improved significantly, he's still getting visits and he's still being consoled by family and friends. He's still being comforted because we need that for a long time. We don't go get over this quickly. Verse number 12. The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning, for he had 14,000 sheep. And if you remember originally, it was 7,000 when this came upon him. He had 14,000 sheep. In fact, everything's double. 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 oxen that had been 500 before, and 1,000 female donkeys that had been 500 before. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. That's exactly the same amount of children he had before.

So the comfort and consolation we need, brethren, is needed for a long time. It's needed for a long time, and this is after things had improved. Let's go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 14.

1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse number 14.

Even after a long time, after things had gotten better and improved, Job still got together with family and friends, and they still needed the comfort and consol him.

God comforts us here in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 14 through Paul.

He says this, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 14.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God is going to bring with Him those who sleep in Him. Those who sleep in Jesus. Verse 15. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, so this isn't Paul's words, this is God speaking through Paul, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means proceed those who are asleep. In other words, those who have died. Paul says, I don't want you to misunderstand. You know, probably some of them at that time were thinking, you know, my loved one is gone, and when Christ returns, I'm going to see Christ before they do because they're dead and they're in the grave. They're asleep. God says, no, no, that's not how it's going to work. It's amazing this scripture is in here because that really helps us to understand something that we may not have understood otherwise. No, they are going to be resurrected first. They are going to see Him most likely before we do. Now, we're not far behind if we are alive at that time. We're not far behind and we'll join them. But isn't that amazing how God says the order of how things work? It's those not that are alive that are going to see my Son first, it's those who have already died that sleep in Him.

So there are some advantages, I suppose. Those that have died get to see, get to rise first, get to become a spirit being first. Verse number 17, then we who are alive, those who have not been deceased yet, and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Verse number 18, therefore comfort one another with these words. You know, that's a great comfort to know this isn't the end. This is just a step in headed towards spiritual life. So God tells us these words can be comforting to us. We grieve, but we don't want to grieve as others who have, don't have this hope. We are to grieve, but we don't grieve as others. Let's go to our final scripture, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse number 11. So we'll pick it up here.

1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 11. Again, talking about this third point here, this third principle of consoling and comforting one another. Therefore, it says, comfort each other and edify one another just as you also are doing. So, brethren, we do as sons and daughters of God, we and brothers and sisters of one another, we are to comfort one another. We have an obligation to console and to comfort each other. It's one of the three principles that scripture talks about here. We're told to comfort and console one another, to remember one another as we go forward in our life. Of course, the first principle that God gave Himself is a great comfortable. God tells us in scriptures. He's a Father and He does comfort His children. And then we have the scriptures to comfort us as well, and that we are to comfort one another. So, brethren, I hope this was helpful as we learned from God's Word how to console one another in the midst of a loss of someone who's been very special to us.

Thank you.