Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Davidson, I Called Him Roosk, He Called Me Dad: A Collection of Thoughts About a Father's Faith, Love, and Grief After Losing His Son (privately printed), 36—37. CHAPTER 11: BLIND INTERSECTIONS

Maar toen ze de tranen voelde opwellen, weigerde ze te gaan huilen. Ze duwde de herinneringen ver van zich vandaan.

Tragedy, no matter how sad, becomes boring to those not caught in its addictive caress.

When I find myself filling with rage over the loss of a beloved, I try as soon as possible to remember that my concerns and questions should be focused on what I learned or what I have yet to learn from my departed love. What legacy was left which can help me in the art of living a good life?

Could I tell her now? The terrible pain assured me that I couldn't. What he did to me, and what I allowed, must have been very bad if already God let me hurt so much.

Feeling hurt does not have to be so frightening. We do not have to work so hard to avoid it. While hurt feelings aren't as much fun as feeling happy, they are, still, just feelings.

Healthy are those who mourn," writes Donald L. Anderson, a minister and psychologist, in Better Than Blessed. "Only very recently have we begun to realize that to deny grief is to deny a natural human function and that such denial sometimes produces dire consequences," he continues.

Sometimes all you could do for the suffering was to make sure they knew someone was suffering right there with them. Someone who had also felt stricken, and smitten, and afflicted.

If we offer what we've experienced to Him, in all its horror and ugliness, and receive His offer to redeem all that occurred, He will bring fruit from it. This has been the single most healing aspect of my recovery from childhood victimization. This is my prayer for that precious little girl. And my prayer for you, too, if you've experienced something similar.

How like Jesus to start stitching a heart back together even as the knife was tearing it apart.

In fact, the absence of appropriate grief after loss may be an indicator of another kind of serious stronghold.