Thoughts...

I feel like I am still in shock. That the next time I go to church I'm going to see Derrik and he is going to be smiling and laughing like I usually see him. I hardly knew Derrik, we've barely spoken, but I knew who he was. He was a good man, he loved his kids. He was a member of my church family, and in his passing it is like I've lost one of my own family. I'm still in denial.

As someone who has experienced death on more than one occasion, I can say from experience how easy it is to get angry with God. Why him? Why now? He was too young.

As believers, when a loved one is sick, we pray. We ask God to heal them, take the sickness away. Then when God calls them home, in our grief and suffering, we cry out to Him. What we don't understand is that God did just what we asked Him to do. God healed Derriks body of the cancer by calling him home! Derrik got to rejoice and receive his homecoming on Jesus' birthday. So Derrik is no longer in pain or suffering. In fact, maybe we can be a little envious that he got there before us. Who knows, maybe he is even re-doing the floors in heaven.

I think it's okay to be sad, to grieve, feel angry...God has broad shoulders...He can handle it. As long as we remember that He hasn't abandoned us. He is always with us, walking beside us or even carrying us through the storm. That in him, we can rejoice and have hope.


"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." - Jeremiah 29:11

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." - 2 Corinthians 1:3-5