Streams of Mercy

It’s been said that sometimes life is just so hard and difficult that we have to fall back into the comfort of all the love we’ve ever known to make it through. In some of life’s moments, to remember love shared and to find comfort in that love reaching through the years can be a great blessing.

I remember a visit I made with my mother many years ago, to a to a little house on Clover Street in Harlan, Kentucky, taking supper to a young family mourning the loss of husband and father. Three young children were gathered around their mother as she sat in her wheelchair. We talked and cried and prayed and ate, and the feeling of love we shared in those moments has stayed with me to this day.

Fast forward 40 some years, and I find myself offering words of comfort via zoom at a prayer service celebrating the life of one of those young children, now all grown up, with a beautiful family of his own. He died of Covid-19. As that young family was held in strong arms of love on that day long ago, so this young family, too, is held in that loving embrace, and will continue to be so held, from generation to generation.

One of my favorite hymns, “God of our Life, ” is the song of my heart in every season of life:

“God of our Life, through all the circling years, we trust in Thee,

In all the past, through all our hopes and fears, thy hand we see.

With each new day, when morning lifts the veil

we own thy mercies, Lord which never fail.”

I give thanks for the memory of love shared, reaching through the years, and for the grace to fall back into the comfort of all the love we’ve ever known to make it through difficult seasons of life. I thank God for my young friend’s life, for his new life in Christ, and for the faithful love of God through all the circling years, a love that never lets us go.

May our memories of love shared through the years bring hope, comfort and healing as we keep on keeping on, with God’s help!

Elizabeth