God is merciful
My mother, Barbara, died late last week. As those of you who have lost a loved one will understand, the days immediately following her death have been filled with details and decisions. My brain keeps bouncing from planning the funeral to managing the end-of-life checklist. “Who is going to be a pallbearer?” is quickly followed by “Did I discontinue her IndyStar subscription?” The need to manage the details can easily push aside grief until a more convenient time.
Which is ridiculous. Grief comes when it comes whether the time is convenient or not. Take for example, this past Tuesday when I read Brother, Give Us a Word, the daily meditation offered by the Society of St. John the Evangelist. The word for the day? Death. I was so tempted to read something else.
But the devotion invited me to stop managing the details and, for a few moments, to sit with my grief. In his sermon, Br. James mentioned that Psalm 130 is traditionally associated with remembering the dead. This was news to me, so I stopped reading the sermon and found the psalm in the Prayer Book.
1 Out of the depths have I called to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice; *
let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.
2 If you, LORD, were to note what is done amiss, *
O LORD, who could stand?
3 For there is forgiveness with you; *
therefore you shall be feared.
4 I wait for the LORD; my soul waits for him; *
in his word is my hope.
5 My soul waits for the LORD,
more than watchmen for the morning, *
more than watchmen for the morning.
6 O Israel, wait for the LORD, *
for with the LORD there is mercy;
7 With him there is plenteous redemption, *
and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.
As I sat quietly with these words, I thought of my mother’s long wait through the isolation of the pandemic and the three years since my father’s death. I thought of the depths from which she called on God as her pain and confusion increased over the past year. I thought of my hours of waiting in the hospital as I watched her slip away. Through tears of grief, I found comfort in the reminder that in God there is plenteous redemption, that no matter how long the wait, God is always merciful.
My mother’s wait is over. She is at peace. Thanks be to God.