Dear Paulie,
You have my sincere condolences. I've learned the hard way to clear my schedule after officiating at any funeral. Too many times I just spent the rest of the day sitting at my desk with my head in my hands slowly soaking the blotter. No other event takes it out of me the way they do, and often its not the grieving for the dead but for the living.
Grieving over the death of loved ones is not wrong, one of my favorite verses in scripture is also the shortest in the bible - John 11:35 - "Jesus Wept". He wept at the tomb of his dear friend Lazarus - even though he was about to raise him up from the grave. If that doesn't teach us that death is profoundly wrong and that grieving over it is natural, I don't know what will.
As for getting strong enough to get through event like this unscarred, please don't expect that to happen. I have in the past 4 years or so, been in the midst of crises that at one time I never would have believed possible, and often I used to ask in prayer "Lord make me strong enough to bear this burden, for I am too weak." But that didn't happen. I never became strong enough to stand in my own power. Then it dawned on me, "that's the point, you big dummy." As the Lord said to Paul in 2 Cor. 12:9 "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." and truly I have learned what Paul meant when he said "For when I am weak, then I am strong."
One thing to perhaps reflect on; it has been my universal experience that men and women going through many tribulations, even being broken down by them, do not grow by simply saying "all this will make me tougher in the end " and growing a thicker skin, but rather by considering "perhaps all of this breaking me down really is to bring me to point where I finally begin asking God what it is he wants to teach me." Often it is only when all our own resources are spent, and we have not a drop of strength left, that we will actually do that.
"God helps those who help themselves" isn't actually in the bible, and I wouldn't dream of offering up Ben Franklin's pithy but falacious phrase to those grieving the loss of a loved one. In those moments real comfort is more likely to be found in the words of David:The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (Psalm 18:2).
May the Lord hear your cry and deliver you.
- SEAGOON