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When someone you loved is dead
Tony Horsfall lost his wife last year to cancer. He is a former missionary in East Malaysia
and former retreat leader based in West Yorkshire. This is part one of a two-part series.
Since my wife passed away in July 2020, I 5. That your experience of grief and
have often been asked, ‘What are you your response to loss is unique and
learning from your grief journey?’ Here personal, so don’t compare your
are a few standout lessons: journey to that of others.
1. That grief takes longer than you 6. That good friends can make the
think to work itself through, and it journey so much easier. Be prepared
can’t be rushed. It is a journey you to ask for help.
must take slowly. 7. That you will be ambushed by grief.
2. That when you lose your spouse, Some things will take you by
you lose not only the person you surprise, especially the little things.
loved, but the person who loved you. 8. That the loss of a spouse will leave
This second loss leaves a hole in you feeling very lonely, even when
your heart, making you very you are surrounded by family and
vulnerable to new relationships. friends. This is not a weakness, just a
3. That you will need to re-discover sign of what you have lost.
your identity as God’s deeply loved 9. That loneliness is not a mental
child in this season of your life, as if illness, just a natural response to
you had never known it before. being bereaved, and it will get better.
4. That God can be trusted to help you 10. That moving forward is not a sign
rebuild your life, but trust may not that you didn’t care, but that there is
come easily. It is better to focus on still a life to be lived and not wasted.
God’s trustworthiness than on your
ability to trust, which may be shaky. Tony Horsfall
A grain of sand at a time
As we start to move towards In the morning, there are hundreds of
Christmas, do you feel tasks we feel we must accomplish
overwhelmed with all the things that day. But unless we take them
that you think you need to get one at a time letting them pass
done? Then think of your life as through the day slowly and evenly,
an hourglass. There are thousands as do the grains of sand passing
of grains of sand in the top of the through the narrow neck of the
hourglass; and they all pass slowly hourglass we are bound to break
and evenly through the narrow our own fragile physical and
neck in the middle. mental structure. Do not attempt
We are like that hourglass. more than God designed you to do.
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