"Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Col. 3:2,3

Forty years ago God brought me to face my fears of my family’s possible deaths. My wife was off on retreat and my  boys on a trip with their school; at the time the accident rate of our resident country was very high, making accidents highly probable.

As I lay alone in bed, a powerful fear gripped me: “What if they have an accident and die?!!!” After struggling with this is prayer, I surrendered my fear with this insight, “Lord you have loaned me Barbara, Josh and Nat to care for and love, to enjoy and work with. If you choose to take them now or at any point, I release them to you. I will praise you for the time you have given us together, and will praise you for knowing the right time to take them.”

In doing this, the Spirit  prepared me for their potential deaths (we are all going to die sometime) by opening my hand and having me hold them in an open palm, releasing them for God to take them or leave them as He knows best. As a result,  I have  already passed through an essential part of the grieving cycle (letting go, dealing with anger and shock, adjusting to the thought of loss). In trusting God to do what is best, fear is defeated and I can live in peace and confidence in God’s goodness and wisdom.

However, I had not done this with my dog; it hadn’t entered my mind to do so—although it should have! I had been holding her with a closed hand, expecting to have her in our family for years to come and when she went, I was not prepared. Therefore, I had to work through the whole grieving process from the beginning.

So acting on this insight,  I went on to surrender all the other people in my life to God in the same way. A good number of them have died since then, and in each case I grieved, but it was brief and not debilitating, for I was able to start three quarters of the way through the grief cycle. This is part of Jesus’ statement, “...you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32.  Let’s avail our selves of this freedom.

Picture holding what is precious with an open hand: