Summer poison

By Keith Williamson Special to the Sentinel

Summer is a time of excitement with fireworks, picnics, and family reunions.

My daughter left yesterday for a four-day retreat in Panama City, Florida. It is her first time to see the ocean. I noticed the light on in her bedroom at 1:00 o'clock the morning before she left. Opening the door to her bedroom, I found her reading a book. She glanced up at me and said, "I'm too excited to sleep!"

The son of a good friend of mine is headed to basketball camp this

week. His eyes showed his excitement as his mom gave me the news.

I got news of another type last night about another summer trip. Agroup of six instructors from a Christian youth camp went to Atlanta to see a Braves baseball game. They wrecked on the way home due to a vehicle malfunction of some type. This morning, four of them are dead and the other two are in critical care at a hospital.

My heart breaks for firends and families of those in the wreck. In the game of life they have drawn the blackest card of them all. Their lives will never be the same.

Writing this article was proceeding just fine until the subject of loss was introduced. I now sit here at the keyboard shocked and in a daze. The subject with its accompanying emotions have been opened. In my opinion, those emotions are the blackest, most destructive, and most painful that exist.

Everyday I deal with my own loss. If it were easy to deal with loss, I would tell you how. But it isn't. However, I would like to share a few things my painful journey has shown me.

First, we live in a fallen world. Things are not as they should be. God did create the world, but this world with its grief and pain is not his perfect idea. Pain, the very worst pain possible, is present in our world.

Two, God does exist. His presence is what enables me to cope. The only way I have been able to survive is through the help (grace) he has given me through prayer and the hope of going to heaven. If God doesn't exist, a broken person like me has no reason to live.

Three, God will use your pain for his purposes. You may see this and you may not, but you have to trust God that he will. It will give you a reason for living when it seems all is lost. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

Finally, get some people praying for you. Don't go through grief by yourself. The poison of grief is not as bad if it is shared with others.