Where is God when life hurts?

For the Townsend Family

Where is God when the world closes in and mothers are grieving over their children who died too young and people are hurting from life and are scared to say goodbye to the ones they love?  Where is God when life does  not make sense and people are hungry and broken and bruised and loneliness overcomes even grandmothers?  Where is God when we fill graves and weep a river of tears over our loss and our grief is never ending?  And I will always scream this question at the door of heaven: Where is God when bad things happen to the only kind of people there are- all of us?  Where is God?  "God is right where He always is:  with us."

God is still sovereign and "He shows up with His scars and to hold the bottle to catch all our tears because He can't bear to let our grief spill hopelessly." 
  Ad midst all the tears, all the pain and all of our crying, we continue because we know we conquer by continuing.  We still begn again and we work even though we weep and it is hard to take the next breath when our hearts our breaking.  We tell our hearts that we must still be open and make room for hope to take root.  We go on and try to hang on and as the pain threatens to swallow us whole and  we bury our hope in that all painful things are not final things.  We place our hope in knowing good will come out of graves and out of our dark places triumph will emerge. This keeps us breathing.  

There is a special grace in waiting for the dark to turn to light.  And we know as mothers that our capacity to love is endless and we are always reflecting that love to our children and we must believe in our ability to emerge from the kingdom of night. 

Weeping may endure for the night but joy will come in the morning.  And she knows what we all need to know that painful things are not final things and that death does not have the last word...And she clings to this knowing that it will bind her wounds and make her whole again...And she knows because I heard it through her tears that God will give her the grace to walk through this barren land called grief and she knows she does not do it alone...

May the God of all comfort surround you with peace and may you know each and every moment of the coming days that God weeps with you and that this is not the final word.