A Prayer for Friends Who Have Lost Loved Ones 

Life in its beginning, life at the end,

all is pure and true gift

beautiful and real.

That there can be life at all, pulsing, real,

changing us by holding onto it, astounds us.

Love is real, making a dent in our cynicism and pride,

real, changing us by causing us to break our hearts to let it in

Hope is so fragile in this world amid the darkness and suffering all around us,

          But it is real,

It dares us to lift our eyes from anger and despair

to believe that it all means something.

Faith, so powerful when we first meet it, is tested and tested, beaten down

          and battered by the relentlessness of injustices in the world,

          and yet faith circles back and keeps whispering “Trust, believe, hold on.”

          So real, even against the disappointments of life that do not work out

          and journeys cut short or filled with suffering and pain.

This gift, our lives, the lives that touch us,

they defy us to hold our faith, hope and love,

          but we do.

It is a mystery, O God, the treasures we are given so quickly gone

          yet in our memory they are eternal and so real.

They point us to you.

Remembering deepens our hope, strengthens our faith, multiplies our love,

even as it causes us to ache all day long with pain and suffering.

As it did and does perfectly for Thee.

In Jesus’ name who took upon Himself a suffering world

As an act of divine love. Amen.