There is New Life- happy birthday

If you have ever lost someone, there are phrases that are the worst to hear. Ones that make your skin crawl, that make you want to jump up and down and scream that they are wrong, that make you cry and cry and anger you even further. If you are wondering if you are at fault for saying some of these...well, the answer is yes.

We all are.

We have all said the wrong thing when to someone we care about when someone dies.

"Oh it's for the best" Really? The best? Death?

"Well, at least they aren't suffering any longer" Umm..excuse me, they actually weren't suffering before

"It was their time" their time for what?

"Oh now they are in a better place"

That last one. That one is the one that used to make me so angry. ME. A PASTOR! After my dad died, I didn't care to hear that he was in a better place.

Absolutely not, because he wasn't supposed to be there yet. He died out of the natural order. Both of his parents were still living. He was only 56.

The list goes on and on. All the reasons that he shouldn't be in that better place.

As time has gone one, 5 years, I still wonder about that statement. Yes, I know he is in a better place but why can't he still be here and then go there in awhile?

I will never know the answer to that question, all I can do is have faith that he is there, that he is loving life and that he is living his new life to it's fullest potential because he is now sitting with God at the long table that Jesus went to prepare for us. The table with his parents, his friends, his family that are all there.

New life, new births, birthdays.

There are signs of new life all around us on a daily basis. For me, it is the green poking it's head through the dirt in my garden. My cousin, Brittany's beautiful baby. My children growing into little people.

They are all signs of hope, hope that there is new life after death, that there is something better out there and that there is something bigger than us all. Without them, without the hope of the "new" we would lose hope in the God that loves us, saves us and reminds us of this new life every single day.

As time goes on, the pain of losing someone starts to soften. It becomes more of who you are and not what you went through.

We all wear our pain and our brokenness in the way that we live our lives and it is what makes us beautiful. It makes us real, it makes us human.

As the season of Lent goes on, we are leaning into what that pain is and how to continue living with it vs living as though it never happened or that it was "the way things were meant to be".

God calls us to live a life of abundance, even through our pain, even through our brokenness and even through the loss of the ones you love the most.

We are invited this Lent to embrace this invitation and surrender to God- surrender it all and envision a life where our pain makes us beautiful and we look at ourselves every single day and know we are enough, we are worthy and we are beloved.

Happy birthday, Dad. I hope it's a great one.

Tell everyone hi- I hope you ARE living your best life in that better place.

-Pastor Ali