In my life, I have found that such things come and go...maybe the others turn has not yet arrived in your congregation...but I agree with you...watching those in deep valleys can grow the others nearby as well.

When the 2 drunks hit my family one night almost 31 years ago...the first one just disabled the wheels so my dad had to go pick up my brother and his fiancee in another nearby city...using his scout and a low boy trailer to bring it back home...well, none of those vehicles made it home then...because another drunk hit them and that time it killed my brother, injuring his fiancee, and almost killing my dad...less than a year later, another drunk hit my grandparents, totalling their car, and putting my grandmother into the hospital for awhile, but my grandpa walked away. Then about 6 months later, my dad was up in the mountains hunting and again was hit by a drunk, though with less damages. I do not know anyone else with that sort of history, though by no means the worst of events that can befall anyone. Strangely enough, both my husband's sister and we were hit about a month after the accident that took my brother's life. It was just our time I guess for such things....long story. I think most families go through tragedies though, and some of them several in a row...and then it falls on another family sometime later. These events forever change the future of the family when they occur though, as there is no other way it can be...you never can replace someone lost! NEVER EVER!!

I hope you can find ways to at least go weep with these people...we need those who will bascially listen when we are in the furnace...and hopefully find some practical ways to help too. Such as making the tastiest food you can and taking it over. Or helping with extra expenses if you can possibly...for with illness no one has FULL coverage of all extra expenses!!
Elizabeth

 

Wow - short of Job, you don't hear too many people having to experience calamity upon calamity like that.

Praise the Lord that you don't seem bitter or unable to forgive. Many a ship has been wrecked on such a reef.

 

I have had a lot of years to work through this too, and other hard places to make it through. But I can tell you, when you cannot stand on your own...then the LORD holds you up! It is all...HE IS ALL we really really need!! And my sorrows were shared...bonding happens when we weep or laugh together, you know.

My grandpa was one of the funniest men that lived...we were priviledged to have him in our family. But a lot of his fun and joy left, never to return, after we lost my brother, who was SO LIKE him in the fun department. But we know we will see him again...that is the greatest joy!! WE have a future NO MAN can take away from us!! The other brothers are kind of funny guys in their own ways, and that has helped, but yes, we have a hole in our family that will never be filled. And now my grandparents and my mom have all gone on...and are with the LORD. I am the matriarch of my family...not a place I expected to be at age 48, several years ago. Nor wanted. But I so have identified with Job in that even if HE chooses to take my life...STILL WILL I TRUST IN HIM!!! It really is where we all must get to eventually, you know. I think so often we loose sight of why we are here in the first place. Helps to keep that focus.

Thanks for the kind remarks. Soon after our calamity fell I happened across the book called Song for Sarah by Paula d'Arcy. (I just discovered the other day she has gone on to write a lot of other books). I wrote and thanked her for writing her story and she wrote back and said that she hoped we would agree that "it is love that has the final say"! That thought has hung in my mind ever since. You see the man who hit us actually told my dad he was better off financially after the wreck (because it caused him to quit drinking for a time anyway...due to night lockup in jail). The insurance company never even covered the vehicle losses, much less paid for the cost of the physical damages or that my dad was never able again to work as much (this was even with a lawyer, who was somehow buddies with the lawyer from the Insurance company...my dad never wanted to go to court but needed to provide some money for the fiancee who was injured...so only sued the company because they would not pay, even though given till the last day before the statute of limitations ran out, not the drunk)...though yet today he still does a little bit in his shop, at age 78. He was also denied social security disability by the doctor employed for social security to check him out. (We encouraged him to go ahead and keep that appointment as any idiot could see his injuries!) Well, that doctor has long been dead and my dad is still here! There is a price to be paid by evil doers too...I think God shortened that man's life. So it came down to being GOD ALONE who kept my parents with food and their needs supplied. NO MAN did so! One other interesting and comforting thing to us was that God somehow told my brother of his death...even 2 weeks prior he told some friends that he doubted he would live to see his wedding, 8 weeks away. God was merciful to us in spite of man's cruelties to us! (Yes, we had many reasons to be bitter, tis true!) My dad occupies his time now helping men get out of drugs and alcohol and into following God.

I encourage you to go be with these suffering people and help how you can! You will likely be blessed in the process.
Blessings, Elizabeth