"Season Reminds Us That God's Here To Help"

I woke up this morning in the mood to get my house back to normal. After two hours of taking down all those cute, fun decorations, I'm in a huge mess and feel overwhelmed. I just keep telling myself that it took me a couple of weeks to get it all up, so I need to be patient while getting it all down. Last night as I was reading the paper before going to sleep, I came upon an article titled, "Season reminds us that God's here to help." It was written by someone from the Washington Post. As I started reading there was a paragraph that I thought applies to me. He says, "When parents die, they take with them a large portion of the past. But when children die, they take away the future as well. This is what makes the valley of the shadow of death seem so incredibly dark and unending. In a prideful way, it would be easier to walk the valley alone, nobly, head high, instead of -as we must- marching as the latest recruit in the world's army of the bereaved." I found out recently that someone in the family has been upset with us about the way we handled the funeral arrangements for Kamber. As Jenn and I were talking about it yesterday, I told her that the week between Kamber's death and the funeral are like a fog. I can't even remember how I survived. It seems like everyone from our family, neighbors, ward family and friends came to help, but honestly I don't know how we got through it. To say some hurtful things now almost five years later about that dark day in my life, seems like a low blow to me. Anyway, I have been to enough counseling to know that when people lash out at others it is because they are wounded and broken themselves. My Dad is really sick right now. We are trying everything we can to find something he can eat. I see his hair falling out and his skin turning a pale color and wish I could help him. He is caught in a hell between the pain of cancer and the side affects that the treatment brings. I pray every day that I won't have to go through something this hideous, but I'm sure there are worse things out there. In this article he says, "Grief is particularly difficult at Christmas, as the best memories can be the hardest ones. But hope of Christmas is broad enough for joy and sorrow." We never know what we will be asked to endure but knowing God is there to help us makes things more tolerable.