I read newspapers regularly, and I often read the obituaries. I see a picture and learn about a family. Young faces catch my eye.

This is not morbid curiosity. I understand the devastation of losing someone close to me. My mother died suddenly when I was 13 in a car accident. Reading the obituaries gives me the opportunity to pray for the families who are suffering.

Grief is in a class of emotional pain all by itself. It is agony. The harshness of being separated against your will from someone you love is brutal. Missing them is misery.

God knows we fear death. He understands how powerless it makes us feel. He understands how threatened we are by it and how deeply we feel the pain of grief.

Where can we find security in a world where death can come without warning? How can we live knowing we will die?

In John Chapter 10, verses 27 and 28 Jesus says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.” [NASB Bible]

God offers us something no human being can–the assurance that we have more than this life to live. God will give eternal life to you, your family and your friends. All those who believe in Him and the One He sent (Jesus) will be received personally by God Himself when they die.

Pray, open your heart to God, read the Bible and believe! Pray for your family and your friends to believe in God, too. Talk to the people in your life about God. If they are resistant or uncertain, pray for a change of heart. Lead whoever you can toward God.

The length of this life is unknown to us. No greater comfort exists than knowing that the ones you love are in the hands of God.

Proverbs Chapter 24, verse 16 is a favorite Scripture of mine.

It says: for though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again…[NIV Bible] It’s a good thing that I don’t earn my own righteousness, because I fail to be righteous so often. In God’s eyes, you are made righteous by what you believe and have faith and trust in. Righteousness is a gift from God in response to our faith in Him as the One True God, and our belief that Jesus was the once and for all, perfect sacrifice for all of our sins.

Only God Himself is capable of forgiving our sins. God’s forgiveness is the foundation of freedom for us. It allows us to start again. It allows us to crawl out from under our mistakes and regrets and pain.

I love this Scripture because it tells me that I can still make it, I don’t have to give up. As sullied as I sometimes feel by the wrong things I do, I know God forgives. The love of God rehabilitates me.

There are times when I feel so fragile, I don’t know how to put myself together again. But God does know how to help me, and He does it even knowing that I will fall again. It is God Himself Who makes us rise again, by His power, not ours.

There is an old church hymn that really describes the hope that God gives in the lowest of low times. It is called, “Love Lifted Me.” We sang this song at my mother’s funeral, and it has always stayed with me. The words are simple and simply life changing.

It starts:  I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore. Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more. But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry; from the waters lifted me, now safe am I!

And the chorus: Love lifted me! Love lifted me! When nothing else could help, love lifted me! Love lifted me, love lifted me. When nothing else could help, love lifted me!