On Sad Days

A week of so many sorrows... Joanie's mom sudden death on Tuesday morning... The funeral for little Lily Ann Haarmann yesterday... Cindi today at the funeral for Dan Kostencki while I finished up homily for Ramona's service... Death everywhere.  "In the midst of very midst of life snares of death surround us." (LSB 755).  Or as Bishop Laache said so famously:  "In this life we carry each other to the grave."

Spent time this morning on the phone with my brother, hospitalized with an infection that may halt his chemo treatments for the time being - he sounded weak, weary, discouraged.  Spent time talking to my sister about how sad conditions are at the VA hospital where Maup is hospitalized.  Spent time in prayer for so many heart-aches of the parish and dear friends going through hellacious times.

In such downer moments, is there any comfort on God's green earth that comes close to what the Church gives us in her hymnody?  I think not.

Why should cross and trail grieve me?
God is near
With His cheer;
Never will He leave me.
Who can rob me of the heaven
That God's Son
For me won
When His life was given?

When life's troubles rise to meet me,
Though their weight
May be great
They will not defeat me.
God, my loving Savior, sends them,
He who knows
All my woes
Knows how best to end them.

God gives me my days of gladness,
And I will
Praise Him still
When He sends me sadness.
God is good; His love attend me
Day by day,
Come what may,
Guides me and defends me.

From God's joy can nothing sever
For I am
His dear lamb,
He, my Shepherd ever.
I am His, because He gave me
His own blood
For my good,
By His death to save me.

Now in Christ death cannot slay me,
Though it might
Day and night
Trouble and dismay me.
Christ has made my death a portal
Through the strife
Of this life
To His joy immortal.