You Are Not Alone
May 3, 2025 — Laura House
My mom went to Heaven a year before Nathan did and I miss her tremendously. I can’t adequately describe the impact she made on my life.
Today, I’m remembering Mom’s frequent trips to Lowe’s garden center, and her practice of purchasing the half-dead plants on the markdown rack at the back of the store. Have you ever seen them? Demonstrating her hilarious sense of humor, Mom would talk to the decrepit plants and assure them that even though no one else wanted them, she would help them live and that they could be beautiful again. Whether there were strangers around didn’t matter to her, she talked to the plants anyway, for my benefit. It’s a memory that makes me smile.
I made my annual spring trip to the back of Lowe’s last week, and hit the jackpot! If you’ve never visited these racks, you should pay them a visit. There were dried up pots of flowers with just a few hints of life, plants with broken stems, and brown-tipped ferns that clearly had been deprived of water when someone did the nightly spraying. So, I filled my cart with pots of plants at a fraction of the usual price and lovingly brought them home.
It’s been a week now of watering and watering some more; transplanting a few, and positioning them for maximum sunlight, and behold, they are transformed! The hibiscus that I paid $4 for, has massive blooms, the dried up snapdragons marked down to $1, are budding, and every pot, except one, is doing well. I still have hope for the last pot — a mandevilla vine.
As I sat on my little porch this morning reading my Bible and surrounded by the now healthy plants, it occurred to me how much I have been like them.
After Nathan died, I was a dried up, wilted, broken-stemmed person. If you have experienced loss, then you know what I am referring to. It was hard to fathom surviving, let alone thriving. Grief covered my once-joyful view of life, and just taking a breath was laborious. Sound familiar? I have often commented that I’m thankful that the memories of those early years are still cemented in my mind and that I can still relate to others who are new to grief.
But like the pots of flowers currently on my porch, I didn’t stay withered and broken. As I cried out to the Lord in lament, and trusted what I knew to be true, the weariness of my soul began to lift and there was hope.
What do we know to be true?
God loves us with a love so deep that our human minds can not fully comprehend it.
He loves our children even more than we do.
He will never leave us.
He is holding us through this valley, even when our grief obstructs our view to see that He is there.
He invites us to pour out our pain and sorrow and He will comfort our shattered hearts.
One day, He will make all of this broken world new!
As you trust the One who loves you most, you will find that your soul will bloom again with hope, joy, purpose, and fulfillment. It will take time, but it will come. In the meantime, He is holding you as you mourn.
You are not alone.
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Romans 8:38-39 “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
John 14:1-3 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
Psalm 34:18 - “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
Isaiah 43: 1-3a “But now, this is what the Lord says— he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; …”
If you have not yet viewed these talks on lament, I hope you’ll find time to watch or listen.
Mark Vroegop — Learning to Lament
Jim Beardsley — Biblical Lament: Walking the Road of Sorrow to the Throne of the King
