Originally Posted by
CoffeeCat
Today I'm just offering thanks to God for a few major things.
Firstly, for being the fair, loving, just Judge and Lord that He is. He gave all of us the chance to come to Him and love Him, and whether or not everyone takes that opportunity, the fact that He gives it is something to praise Him for. And I know that when we don't know one way or another if someone we love has come to know Christ before they died, we can know that God will be absolutely fair and that His love for us is bigger than we know.
Secondly, I'm thanking Him for giving me 23 years with my grandma. She's just died, and I have more than a couple decades of memories with her. I miss her so much right now. But to have known her and loved her, I know I've been blessed. She helped make me into the person I am today. And although we don't know if she knew Christ or not, I know that she had one of the biggest pieces of my heart and always will.... and I'm just trusting her to Christ and thanking God for her.... and for ending her pain.
Thirdly, I am thanking God for being with my family including my grandma. Grandma was sick and in pain, and that pain tore into us horribly.... and God's holding us ALL up and comforting us, and I am praising our saviour for being there in the pain. Christ is carrying us as we're hurting. We don't always or even usually understand God's ways, but I've felt Christ drawing me closer and closer to Him and other family members have said, in the last day, that they feel God's with them..... and I can't ask for more than that.
Fourth, I am thanking Him for all the wonderful friends He's blessed us with, online and offline, who have reached out with hugs, prayers, love, and support. He's given us a wonderful blessing in the people we know and talk to, and I praise Him for that. It's a support that helps more than these people know.
Fifthly... I am praising Him for being patient with me. I have a lot of questions I may never have answers to, and the number of different emotions I've felt and probably will feel are difficult ones, but He's letting me feel them and process them, and I know I can be honest with God, and real with Him, and open with Him, and He's been so patient and faithful in just being there with us and with me, personally.
Finally, I'm thanking and praising God for letting us be with my grandma before she died. Everyone in our immediate family got there on time to say goodbye, and I am grateful for that. We were told that she could probably hear us, so we got to say 'I love you', got to pray next to her, got to remind her of Jesus Christ, got to ask her to follow Him and trust Him, and we got to hug her and each other and we were all able to see how she just fell asleep. It wasn't a painful ending. We were together as a family.... and if she DID hear us, then she got to hear our love for her and God's love for her, and that gave us a relief I can't even explain. As for whether or not she believed everything we said about Christ.... I leave up to God and thank Hiim for working in ways we'll never know on this side of heaven.
I'm crying as I am writing this but I needed to write it, to let you know that sometimes, you CAN praise God in the middle of being upset and losing someone you love with all your heart. He's allowed me to stay close to Him, and He's drawn me close to Him and His love and I am overwhelmed by how alone I don't feel.
Thank You, Lord. Thank You for being with all of us, and for being Who you are.
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I wish back then I had the faith that you have now to praise The Lord for giving you the time you had with her! I will pray for your family and you, and praise The Lord with you for time spent with her.
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