Helping those who are grieving

All right, well good morning, it is good to be here, good to see the visitors, you're welcome with us this morning, glad to have you. I'm getting wired up here, if you want to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 71 while I'm getting this connected, that would be just fine. All right, well I guess you'll let me know if this isn't coming through well.

In the meantime, I have a question for you. I'm wondering how many people, if I write a date up here on the board, how many people could remember what you were doing on this date? So you could raise your hand as soon as you think about what you were doing. How many remember what they were doing on that date? All right, okay, a few more hands going up.

It's not very long ago, it's three days ago, January 1, 2026, all right, so let me write another date up here. How many remember what you were doing on this date? Anybody remember? Not near as many, okay, it's ten years ago, almost exactly ten years ago, so keep those dates in mind. The reason I'm asking some of these questions, I have been reading a book recently, and this book was written by a man who I've known all my life, I've known the family all my life, Jason Schrock is his name.

This is the book, I just bought it at Shopper's Shalom, it's called An Ongoing Stream. He had a lot happen in his life, it's called A Memoir of a Life Shattered Again and Again by Deep Sorrow Yet Experiencing Repeated Restoration. As I was reading that book, and I was just thinking, how long have I known this man, this family, and it brings back a lot of memories that I have of their family.

I think back to the time that I was, I'll just put some numbers up here, when I was 12 years old, I remember hearing that his wife had passed away of cancer. She was 39 years old, just a few days from being 40, and she had had a cancer for I think less than two years, she's been battling this disease, but eventually she passed away at age, I was 12, she was 39, and of course at that age she looked much older to me, now I look at that age and say, that's pretty young. But 18 years of marriage, November 23, 1984, well, then a year later, when I was a little over a year later, I was 13 years old, he got married again, this time it was to Ruth Crump.

Now, Ruth had been widowed a few years before that, back when I was age nine, so these are memories that I have, other people would remember a little bit different, but when I was nine years old, middle of the summer, I remember getting a, our family got a call that there had been an accident, Sam Crump out here on Peoria Road had been hit with, he was driving a tractor, I think hit with a gravel truck, and when he was making a left turn and the guy didn't see it or something, tried to pass, and anyway, he was killed. So she had been a widow for, I don't know, three, four, five years, something like that, and Jason remarried Ruth. So that was back in, well, the death happened in 81, I think they got remarried then in 86.

Okay, so again, when I was nine, when I was 12, when I was 13, I had all these memories, when I was 24, had another memory, Jason and his family, they took, they went down to Mexico and they were starting a trip to go down through Mexico, they had a, he had a sister there, down through South America, I'm not sure where all they were gonna go, but they had no sooner got started on this trip, when we heard about an accident, right over here on the corner of Crook and Powerline, and his, it was actually Ruth's sister-in-law that was driving Jason's parents, so Evelyn Krupp, and then Melvin, who had been my minister for many years, and his wife Anna, they were in this car, and they pulled out in front of a car that was going through there at probably normal speed, anyway, there was a collision, and all three of them were killed, Anna hung on around about, hung on about 10 days before she died, but they were all three killed, so Jason's trip to Central America got interrupted, and again, I was eight, I was 24 years old at the time, when this happened, I had just been married, I'd been married less than a year, if I remember right, we were living here in this community, well, then when I was 26 years old, another event happened, Jason's granddaughter, Carmen, up in Washington, the same church where my parents lived, they were out camping, and they were hiking, and she was a little bit away from the rest of the group, all of a sudden, a cougar comes out of the woods, and grabs her by the head, and starts dragging her into the bush, she was five years old, and she survived, but there were some deep scars on her head as a result of that, seven years later, I was 33 years old, and I had a few children of my own by now, and we were out in a yurt, out by the coast, we had heard about these things called yurts, and they were supposed to be pretty neat, so we thought, well, we need to go rent one, and so we did, we thought, we're gonna make some memories as a family, well, we had some memories, but the memory that I, the thing that I remember the most is a phone call I got that evening from my brother David, he said, Jeff, which is Jason's oldest son, he's been in an accident, a head-on collision, and all five of his children died up there in Washington, that's again the same community where my parents and my sisters, who were still at home, where they lived, up in Chihuly, Washington, so Carmen was one of them, the same girl who got attacked by the cougar, now she's killed, along with her four younger siblings, they have no children left, they do, their mom, Carolyn, she was expecting a baby at the time, and so that was, of course, that made news all across the United States, when that happened, when this man crossed the median, they think maybe blacked out, had a coughing spell, they're not sure what happened, but anyway, somehow he crossed the median, and hit them head-on, and killed five people. Then, when I was 37, just a few years later, we received the news that his second wife, Ruth, who was, she was 10 years younger than him, when he married Ruth, he says, I was sure she was going to outlive me, well, now we got the diagnosis that she has cancer as well, and she fought this, that was in 2010, she fought it for about five years, and then she passed away, she was 59 years old when she passed away, they'd been married about 29 years, so the first wife that died when I was 12, let's see if the math comes out here right, they had, they'd been married 18 years, and then got married again, and this was around 29 years, and so five years later, at 42 years, when I was 42, so these are memories of my life, memories of this Schrock family, so at 42, I'm sorry, when I was 42, Ruth passed away at age 59, married almost 29 years, during that five-year journey, there were some other things that happened, that five-year cancer journey, there were, it was liver cancer, I believe, and they heard the news that Jason's older brother, Paul, had fallen down some steps back east and hit his head, and he passed away, he was 75 years old, and then his younger sister, Julia, had a brain aneurysm, she was upstairs and called her husband, but her head was hurting like crazy, but before they could get to the hospital, she had passed away, and after Ruth passed away, at age 59, I would say this, one of the, my favorite parts of this book was a whole chapter, probably the longest chapter in the book, and it was just simply emails that were being traded back and forth between family members, Jason would write, and then his children would write, and they'd have the name down there, and all these emails, this discussion, what is it like to be, you know, mom is gone, and what do we think now, and then they brought, started bringing back memories of the first mom, Mom Marilyn, who died, you know, 30 years earlier, and a lot of memories that were coming up, and so what this does, I'm bringing you up to the time about 10 years ago, let me just say this, shortly after Ruth passed away, Jason's second wife, that was in 2015, I think it was March, just a couple of months later, May, something like that, they got another diagnosis, Jason's daughter, Esther, she's now younger than I am, we went to school together, she was diagnosed with cancer, and so this is, now brings us up to this date right here, January 1, 2016, and in the introduction to this book, I'm just going to read it to you, it talks about a New Year's Day celebration that they had, they were all together, it had been about nine months since mom passed away, but the family came together, and this is just telling a little bit of the story of who they are, what they've been through, the date was January 1, 2016, we as a family had all looked forward to another opportunity to gather and commemorate the holidays, sharing a meal together, and doing all the typical activities that go along with a time like this, this year, however, there was an overriding consciousness that today was going to be different, a year before we had been gathered together for the Christmas holidays in Chihuahua, Washington, where three of my children lived, little did we realize within three months, my wife of nearly 29 years, mother of our 11 children, and grandmother to 27 grandchildren, would depart this life, as we sat around the table loaded with ham, mashed potatoes, corn, salad, and rolls, we enjoyed lively conversation, though each one felt keenly the loss of the one that had always held everything together, and coordinated the finer details of family meals and gatherings, this was not the first family holiday meal, that was punctuated with the loss of dear family members, I couldn't help but remember the tremendous feeling of loss 31 years earlier, when my first wife Marilyn was no longer around the holiday table, and then there was a tug of the five missing grandchildren taken from this life, just before a holiday gathering 10 years ago, now, I was experiencing for the second time, the loss of a wife taken by cancer, this year, there was also a dark cloud of another family member, my daughter Esther, being invaded by cancer, and not knowing what the next year may hold, around the table this day, were the five children of Marilyn and mine, the three children of Ruth and her first husband Sam, who was killed in a farming accident 35 years ago, and the three children from Ruth and my marriage, the 11 children are as follows, number one, son Jeff and his wife Carolyn Berkey, who both of whom had lived in our local community of Halsey, Oregon, before moving to Cholula, Washington to help establish a fledgling church, 10 years before all five of their children were killed in a traffic accident, Jeff was driving and survived, but had months of recuperation, this year as the 10 year mark passed, a huge hole that those three daughters and two sons left in the family, felt especially keen, their daughter and their son, born after the accident are with them today, next, daughter Laura and her husband, John Smucker, and their five children are also around the table, it's special to have them with us today, as they missed many family gatherings, due to 10 years of mission service in Poland, they had answered the call to be involved in a new mission work in Poland, under faith builders, in Geismil, Pennsylvania to help establish a church, they returned about 4 years ago and are finding their way in American living again, next is daughter Esther and her husband, Lowell Troyer, with their five children to add to the gathering, it's special to have Esther here today, because we don't know how long she may be with us, she was diagnosed with cancer six months ago, the prognosis looks good at this time, but we all know from past experience that we need to cherish the time we have with her, next in line are Marcus and his wife Rhoda and their children, their three children, Marcus gives a Latin American flavor to our family, having come from El Salvador at the age of two, they live closest to us of any of the children and frequently stop by for short chats, Sarah is the youngest of Marilyn's and my children, she's only, she was only two and a half years old when her mother passed away, she married Gerald Hooley and they live in Chihuly, Washington with their three children, Ed Krupp is the oldest of Sam and Ruth's children, three children and has been, having been three and a half when his dad was killed, in his growing up years he spent a lot of time with his Krupp grandparents, uncles and aunts, he married Julia and they have five children, after moving to Chihuly he was ordained deacon at the Pine Grove Church, Jolene Krupp is the second of Ruth and, child of Ruth and Sam, during this holiday season she's enjoying a special reprieve from teaching at her local church school in Tulsa, she's taught special ed and remedial reading for a number of years and lives at home, she's often the decorator for events such as this, Ruth and Sam's second daughter Judy married Raymond Zare and they have four children, they live close to us which allowed Judy and her children to be frequent visitors at grandma's when she was still here, Raymond works at Smith Seed Services as a salesman and is son of my business partner Paul, Regina was the firstborn of Ruth's and my children and she still lives at home. She keeps busy with her fabric store in Albany as well as a lot of social involvement.

She helps her sisters when they have another baby and often cares for her nephews and nieces. She also teaches music one day a week at our church school. Joel is married to Sarah and they live near Harrisburg, Oregon.

He taught in our church school for seven years and recently began working in the business where I am a partner, Smith Seed. Ryan, the youngest and still living at home, also works at Smith Seed. Ryan had five nieces and nephews when he was born and grew up with them.

It was very special to have all 47 of us gathered around this holiday. Even though there's a lot of conversation and laughter, we couldn't help but grieve the passing of our loved ones. The day before, the six daughters had descended upon my bedroom and cleaned out and sorted Ruth's things, dresses, clothing, toiletries, first aid items, books, toys, the gift cupboard and there were a lot of items to be divided among the family.

By the next morning, with Ruth's things vacated from the bedroom, it hit pretty hard that life had changed. We were facing our first Christmas season without her. After lunch, the ladies laid out Ruth's stuff on three eight-foot tables.

First were the books. Ruth had always given the grandchildren a book at Christmas time. This tradition seemed to get more involved as the years passed.

She often gave a book in a series or a new one off the press. Each year, she'd also give our 11 children a book, the same title for each person. Her cupboard had been stuffed with books for the occasion and now the leftovers were laid out on the table.

The little children got the first choice, then the younger grade schoolers and finally the teenagers and adults. Once everyone had their choice, it was time to choose again. Most everyone got at least three books.

It proved to be the end of an era, leaving only cherished memories of Grandma under book giving. As the day of dividing Ruth's things continued, we remembered the blessing of the past even as we felt the loss of the present so keenly. Later that day, as I contemplated the events of the past, I realized many lessons could be learned from the experiences of our family.

The following pages are an effort to share those events and experiences in a way that will be meaningful to family and friends. That's the introduction to this book. Jason talked about, well, let me just give you an update.

After that event, Esther did go on to fight her cancer for three more years and she eventually passed away at age 44. Jason has since that time, he got married again to now his third wife, his son-in-law, Lowell Troyer. He also got married and both of those families, they still live in this area.

But about six weeks after his second wife died, he preached a sermon from Psalm 71. And that's why I wanted to read Psalm 71, so if you still have your Bibles open to that, that would be good. Maybe the question comes, how would you ever, for those of us who preach, get back into preaching after you lose a spouse? After his first wife died, Marilyn, the bishop told him, you know, there's been people who just couldn't get back into it.

It's better sooner than later. So I think within two weeks of his wife dying at age 39, Jason was asked to preach the main message like two weeks later. And I guess that avoided some of the trauma of dealing with it a month later, six months later, whatever it was.

Also he told the story of, you know, he was a minister during this entire time, and the way they do communion, they serve communion, you got the men's side and the ladies' side, and he was asked to serve communion soon after the second wife died, Ruth. And so he's going down the aisle, handing out pieces of bread or the juice, whatever, and he just says, all of a sudden, hit him when he got to the bench where his wife would have been. And then just all of a sudden this wave of emotion came over him as he's trying to hand out the communion.

And I looked for that in the book again, I read it, it's a pretty thick book as you can see. And I couldn't find it again this morning, so I don't have the exact date of that, how long that was after the death, but it was, yeah, just some of those experiences were very powerful. So anyway, I'd like to read Psalm 71.

In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust, let me never be put to confusion. Deliver me in Thy righteousness and cause me to escape, incline Thine ear to me and save me. Be Thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort.

Thou hast given me commandment to save me, for Thou art my rock and my fortress. Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man, for Thou art my hope, O Lord God. Thou art my trust from my youth.

By Thee have I been holding up from the womb. Thou art He that took me out of my mother's bowels. My praise shall continually be of Thee.

I am as a wonder unto many, but Thou art my strong refuge. Let my mouth be filled with Thy praise and with Thy honor all the day. Cast me not off in the time of old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth.

For mine enemies speak against me, and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying, God hath forsaken him. Persecute and take him, for there is none to deliver him. O God, be not far from me.

O my God, make haste for my help. Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul. Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor that seek my hurt.

But I will hope continually, and will yet praise Thee more and more." As you read these verses about hope, this was a special psalm to him, drain the journeys of cancer that especially his second wife was going through. And you know, just saying, God, I trust you. God, I hope in you.

God, I hope and trust, I pray you're going to heal her. And so you can imagine the disappointment after reading these verses, and then she passed away anyway. And then him deciding, I'm going to still preach about this psalm.

This is going to be a psalm that I'm going to preach of after my wife has passed away. Verse 15, my mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day, for I know not the numbers thereof. I will go in the strength of the Lord God.

I will make mention of thy righteousness, even thine only. O God, thou hast taught me from my youth, and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not until I have shown thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.

Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high. Who hath done great things, O God? Who is likened to Thee? Thou which has shown me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side.

I will also praise Thee with a psaltery, even Thy truth, O my God. Unto Thee will I sing with a harp, O Thou Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto Thee, and my soul which Thou hast redeemed.

My tongue also shall talk of Thy righteousness all the day long, for they are confounded and they are brought to shame, for they are brought to shame that seek my hurt. You know, one thought I had was, as I was looking at this, I could just probably preach Jason's whole sermon that he preached that Sunday because he put enough notes in the books, the book that I could do that. He has quite a few of his sermon notes in there, different thoughts or somebody else's sermons that were preached.

I'm not going to do that. So the question is, what are we going to talk about this morning? What is the main reason I'm bringing these things in, looking at these dates and, you know, things, my own memories? The reason I wanted to bring this up was because there's a question in my mind that goes like this. How should we respond to those who are grieving? I've always felt kind of handicapped when I see other people that are going through grief and how do you respond to them? What do you say? What do you not say? And people, you know, things keep happening.

Sometimes someone loses a child. Sometimes it's a parent. Sometimes it's a spouse.

And what do you say at a time like that? And in the book, it tells a story of Jason and Ruth. When Ruth was still living, she had probably had cancer at that point, but they both had these memories. Jason losing his wife, Marilyn, at age 39, her losing her husband, Sam, after only five years of marriage.

And they were invited up to Ontario to speak at an event there, Jason to the men, Ruth to the ladies, about how to help our people deal with grief. How should we respond to those who are grieving? Helping our people relate to pain and loss. And so as I looked at those thoughts that were given, I said to myself, I think I would like to pass on some of those thoughts to us as a congregation, because we've gone through some things, but we're likely to go through more.

How do we deal with this thing of grief? And this book is incredibly helpful. It's helpful to people who are dealing with grief, but it's also helpful for people to know how to help others that are dealing with that. And so I do have some handouts I want to hand out.

Austin, if you don't mind passing these out. I would, I think I have 40 of them here, so probably every family should be able to get one. If you start at the back and work forward, that'll show us how many are left for the single ones up here.

And if, yeah, go ahead and pass them out until they're gone. But this handout that you are getting here, even though the focus this morning is on grief from a loss, a death, that's not the only kind of grief that people go through. And Jason and Ruth were very conscious of that as they were sharing.

They said, we have experienced death for us. They had both lost a spouse, then they lost their grandchildren in that accident. And that's why they were invited, because people wanted to know, how do we help people that are going through these things, these type of things? But he said, you know, there's other kinds as well.

There are financial problems that people go through. There are medical problems. Some people have chronic pain that they're dealing with.

There's some people who are not able to have children, and that causes them grief. There's people that go through miscarriages or stillborn children. Sometimes people have handicaps.

Maybe they themselves have a handicap, or maybe they have a child that has a handicap, a family member. Maybe there's a breakup of a love relationship of some sort. Maybe you're already in a marriage, but your husband's been unfaithful.

Maybe there's a rebellious son or daughter. Maybe there's loss of possessions, like in a fire. Maybe you're going through intense church problems.

Maybe you're going through, you're enduring single life when you would prefer to be married. And it's not mentioned here, but maybe there's people who are enduring married life when they would prefer to be single. Maybe there's loss of dreams.

You had hopes. You had things you wanted to do, but the door got closed, and you'll never do them. And then finally, there's the death of a loved one.

And as far as which of these are the most painful, I don't even know if I'd want to comment on that. Jason, this list that I put down here primarily came from Ruth's talk. She had a very organized list for the ladies, but Jason also gave a list, and he talked about some of this same thing to the men.

And he says, let's consider various issues that people face, and he's talking to church leaders primarily. What are the church leaders supposed to do? He said, let's look at some of these things. And he gives a whole list of possible things, and then at the end he said, every one of these things has happened in our local church.

So listen to his list. Number one, the youngest child in a large family turns her back on her parents' admonishments, leaves home, and marries a divorced man. The parents are devastated.

Number two, a couple gets married later in life and are excited that God's granted them the privilege to have a child, but that child is born with Down syndrome. Number three, a fire burns a dwelling and most of the contents of the house are destroyed or ruined. The family has a long, slow process of getting a new house built.

Number four, a son gets in trouble with the law and is convicted of burglary. The parents listen with anguish as the judge sentences him to 20 years in the state pen. Number five, a mother of five is stricken with cancer and after 14 months of treatment passes on, leaving her husband and children to go on without her.

Number six, a wife is devastated, wondering where she has failed when she finds out her husband has been unfaithful and has been frequenting prostitutes. Number seven, a little child has a heart condition. At 16 months of age, his parents take him to a Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, with the hopes of him being able to live a normal life, but he dies during surgery.

Number eight, a young couple has problems that develop into mistrust, blaming the other for the problems they face, resulting in separation and eventual divorce. Number nine, grandparents are informed of an accident that takes the lives of five of their grandchildren and leaves their son in critical condition. Number ten, a parent finds out that their child has autism and has to give special attention to his needs.

Number eleven, a father of five is diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease and is unable to work and support his family while he takes treatment. The family wonders if he'll recover. And number twelve, a young couple plans to get married.

Their engagement is broken. They go their separate ways, feeling keenly the loss of a planned future together. And he says, these are situations that can happen.

In fact, they are situations that have taken place in our own congregation. And then they went on with his talk, just acknowledging. Grief of a loved one is not the only thing that people go through.

But they talk about the grieving process. I think you have it there on your list. Some of the things that are very common.

Number one is denial. Number two is anger. Number three, bargaining with God.

God, if you do this, then I'll give in to you if you only give me this. Number four is guilt, depression. People think about, what should have I done? And number five, finally is acceptance.

Finally a person is able to come to the place of acceptance. And that's hard. That's quite a journey.

And a lot of times they go through every one of these five steps before coming to the acceptance. We can look at what does a grieving person feel? People who are grieving, people who have lost loved ones, intense emotional suffering. They feel like there's an unfillable void.

Ruth said this. She says, the whole time that I was a widow, which was nearly five years, I felt a great big hole inside. She says, a couple of weeks after Jason and I were married, I realized that that huge hole was gone.

It's that unfillable void. There's this thing of feeling unmotivated, lethargic, no drive. They tell the story when their children, their grandchildren were killed.

They heard up there in Washington, they said they knew. They sat there in the living room looking at each other. They said, we knew we needed to get in the car and drive up there to Washington.

To comfort our son and his wife and the family. But we just had no drive to do anything. It just felt like, yeah, all of our motivation to do anything was just gone.

Making decisions is hard. Just to, what do we do? There's so many decisions to make, but we can't think clearly to make those decisions. Finally, self-pity is a common one.

And why do I have to go through these things? Everybody around me has good things going on. So then they went to this topic of, well, what things are helpful? People around you, as they look on, they see this family, they see grief. People did things.

Some of those things were helpful. Some of those things were not helpful. So part of this, I'd just like to put down some things that were good.

One was organizing. Just simple organizing, things that had to happen. When she was there sitting in her room, knowing that her husband had just been killed by this gravel truck.

She didn't know where to start. She says, I don't know what to do, but here she is, a mother of three little children. And she said, Sam's father, he went ahead with organizing things.

She says, I was very grateful for that to happen. Somebody else just to take over, make these decisions for me. She says another thing that happened is that she was prepared emotionally for the funeral.

She was getting ready to go to this funeral. Now, it's just a few days away. And she's obviously devastated with, what am I gonna do? And what are these other people gonna do? I don't know how many people came to that funeral.

I think Ruth's funeral was, I forget, 800 or 900 people. It was probably the biggest funeral I was ever to. I think Sam's was probably similar.

That was three years earlier. I don't remember it as well. But she said, before that funeral, a lady came to her who had lost her son.

He was killed by a train. And that's just about a mile out of town here. The intersection's no longer there.

But he was crossing the tracks and got hit by a train, 17 years old, he was killed. And so this lady came to Ruth and she says, I wanna warn you, when you go to the funeral, you're gonna see people around with smiles on their face. They'll be talking to each other.

They might even be laughing. Don't let that shock you. They're not hurting as bad as you're hurting.

And Ruth said that was very helpful to get that advice from this mother who was going through grief of a son who had died just eight months earlier than that. Another thing is household duties. Paying the bills.

A lot of the bills she knew was coming. Her husband was a farmer, so there was grass seed to sell. And they had bills coming in for fertilizer.

And some of these bills just kind of went away. Somebody took care of them. And she never found out who it was.

She says, conversation was helpful. Just having another adult to talk to. She had her children and she could talk to them, but that's not quite the same as talking to an adult.

Babysitting. Sometimes somebody would offer, hey, we'll take care of your children. If you wanna go, get away just for a while.

And making the food. When Jason's father and Evelyn died over here by Smith Seed, somebody else showed up to clean the house. And they said, well, hey, why do you need help cleaning? You got three grown daughters.

They should be able to do just fine cleaning. But nobody felt like doing anything. Nobody felt like motivated.

She says, the head of the food committee, who herself had lost two brothers in accidents, organized the meals. And so everything was just taken care of. She says, that was extremely helpful.

Another lady says, hey, can we, we'll take you out garage sailing. And I guess you know what that is. Anyway, she took them garage sailing just to get away for some time.

There was a motel that provided free continental breakfast after the five children were killed. They just said, hey, help yourself to the food. It's all on us.

Help yourselves. And so that was helpful. Simply being a contact person.

Somebody who, you know, who's gonna take the calls? The press, they have questions sometimes, especially when five children are killed at once. You need someone there to take those calls. It can't be the parents.

You know, the one, the dad was in the hospital. The mom was grieving. Just being a contact person.

Combing the girl's hair, and I'm pretty sure what this is talking about. In fact, it might have even been my mom that did this. A volunteer to go comb the hair of these girls who are in the coffins now.

And they're gonna be buried here in a few days. Well, who's supposed to do that? Does it need to be the mom, or can some of the, somebody from the family do that? Small gifts. Somebody else volunteered to come polish the shoes.

I wouldn't have thought of that. Gift cards. People drop off gift cards at grocery stores and restaurants.

And those things were very helpful. And then Ruth made a list. Things to do.

She says, pray, pray, pray. She says, I can't emphasize this enough. After Sam's death, we stayed at his parents' for a couple nights.

When we finally did go home, so they stayed at the parents' after her husband had passed away, but finally they had to go back to their house. And she was surprised when she found out how well it went. And then she found out later that one of his cousins, who lived a thousand miles away, felt an urge to pray for me that day.

And she says, don't quit praying after the first week or two. Keep on praying. Carolyn, the mom of the five children that were killed, there was a relative of hers that told her just several months ago that she still prays for them every day.

So this is ten years later at least. And she says, my hardest time was about two months after Sam died. I was desperately lonesome for him, and I felt like everyone had gone on with their lives.

But here I was still alone. So keep praying, even after the initial funeral and all that was over. Another thing, be sympathetic.

You can be sympathetic without having experienced the same thing. Send flowers, cards, calls, send a text message. Give a listening ear.

Remember the special days. You know, Mother's Day rolls around, Father's Day rolls around, birthdays roll around, remember them. Furnish a meal or something baked.

Take, these are lists right directly from Ruth's talk. Take the person for an outing or a meal when they're ready. Let them know you care, even though it looks like they're doing fine.

Give space for people to grieve in their own way. You know, people grieve differently. They just don't know what to do.

Sometimes they just wanna go do something normal. When they were driving to the, from the funeral to the, to the burial of, of those five children that died up in Washington. The mom, Carolyn, she just wants to do something normal.

She says, can I drive? So she jumps in the driver's seat. And she drives. You know, normally there's plenty of people that said, we'll drive you, but she just wanted to do something normal.

So she drives, and she says it gave quite, quite, it startled the guy who was doing the car parking at the church. So, but it gave them a laugh for the to help them through some of these things. So number ten, give room for erratic emotions.

People's emotions can go up and they can go down and sometimes it doesn't make sense. Let, give, give them room for that. Remember the children that they may be grieving too.

And remember that adults and children grieve differently. Yeah, there's she, she talked about one of her sons after the accident. And he was one of them didn't wanna, didn't wanna talk about it.

Others of those, they did wanna talk about it, and it was just different. And I think I read here somewhere, one of her sons just felt like jumping up on the table and yelling. And so she later let him do that, and she, oh, here it is.

He says, several more weeks passed, and one day we got home from school. He says, I feel like hollering. So he stood on the picnic table and hollered for a while.

I doubt if he knew why he was hollering, but I felt quite sure that he felt better afterward. So yeah, interesting. If a person has a sense of humor, encourage it.

I guess the news, somehow the news got around after the accident up here that all five children were killed, and then the dad, Jeff, he was brain damaged. Well, they got a lot of mileage out of that. Every time he would do something, they'd say, maybe you're still brain damaged.

And anyway, they used it as a time of humor. So you encourage that, if that's what it takes. And then finally, just keep in mind, people don't get over a loss.

They go through it. Keep in mind, people do not get over a loss. They go through it.

And then she lists some things not to do. She says, some of these things were difficult for me. She says, I don't wanna make anybody feel bad if you did it.

Just something to remember, if you have this opportunity again. She says, be careful about glibly quoting verses right after the death of a loved one. One example would be, all things work together for good for them that love God.

Be careful, that might not be as comforting as you intend it to be. Don't say this, don't say, I know just how you feel. You don't really.

Every experience is different. She says, it could be helpful to tell them about a similar experience you've had. She says, a friend would come up, and her husband had died not very many years ago, and they would talk about that.

And she says, my father died when I was a teenager. They knew that person understood. So something like that can be helpful.

If a child dies, don't say, well, at least you have so and so left. They are thankful for each child they have, but that doesn't make the huge hole in their family any smaller. Number four, she tells a story at the cemetery.

She was sitting there, three little children, her husband freshly killed. They're burying her husband, and an older lady walks up to her and asks her this, whatever are you gonna do? She says, my thoughts exactly, and I didn't know how to respond to her. And then somebody else stepped in and took that from her and answered that for her.

But that wasn't, yeah, even though it was probably intended to be sympathetic, it wasn't helpful, really. Number five, don't try to explain to a hurting person why you think this happened. That probably won't help either.

Number six, don't say, I'm sure you're feeling like this today. Again, that might sound sympathetic, but she says, go ahead and let them know that you're thinking of them. But you really don't have any idea what they're actually feeling.

Maybe yesterday was a hard day, but today isn't as hard. Maybe today's a good day for them. But if they're having a hard day, then it might be for some other reason.

Number seven, don't push a grieving person to do something for a while. They have a lack of motivation, obviously. And number eight, don't forget them.

And just remember, even months later, they're still going through hard things. She says, what about, are there any good things that can come from pain and loss? When a friend's mother was dying of cancer, I knew those caring for her had been eating a lot of hamburgers, so I took a big supper to them. My friend responded, I didn't do this for you when your mother was sick.

It's okay, I told her. You didn't know. Maybe you can do it for someone else sometime.

I guess I'm telling on myself. But after Sam died, I found out that some of the people that I would have been the most critical of before really had the biggest hearts. So there were good things that would come, even from these hard things.

And she ended her talk with 1 Peter 5.10, but the God of all grace, who hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever, amen. And then they had this song that she shared with them.

It's a song that says, no disappointments in heaven. And when we talk about heaven at a time like this, I have to, sometimes it's interesting to imagine family reunions that are going on right now in heaven, and you think of the grandparents. And then they had some children die young, and they're invited to this little family reunion.

And then they start thinking of some other people that they also knew. And after a while, I, down here on this earth, I think we're the big group, and the people that died are the small group. But that group is growing.

And the more and more we think about it, the more and more I think about it, I think, wow, this person and that person. And Wilbert, which would have been Sam's father, also Leland Krupp's dad, and so he had Sam that passed away as a young man. And well, then Sam had the older sister that died in that car wreck right over here on Krupp Drive.

Then they had a younger sister that died of cancer. Martha was her name. And well, now Martha has a grandchild who's also my grandchild, Alex.

And just on and on it goes, and all these connections. And the five children, and their grandparents, and then their Aunt Esther, she passed away from cancer. She was the last one mentioned, but there were other people.

And before long, you think of all the acquaintances that we have on the other side, and the number here is getting smaller, the number there is getting larger. And I know some of our parents, parents-in-law, they're getting up there in age. You think the number of people they know that have already passed are probably a lot larger than the ones that are still here.

So here's the song. There's no disappointment in heaven, no weariness, sorrow, or pain. No hearts that are bleeding and broken, no song with a minor refrain.

The clouds of our earthly horizon will never appear in the sky, for all will be sunshine and gladness with never a sob or a sigh. There will never be crape on the doorknob, no funeral train in the sky, no graves on the hillsides of glory. For there we shall nevermore die.

The old will be young there forever, transformed in a moment of time. Immortal will stand in his likeness, the stars in the sun to outshine. I'm bound for that beautiful city where my Lord has prepared for his own, where all the redeemed of all ages sing glory around the white throne.

Sometimes I get homesick for heaven, and the glories I there shall behold. What a joy that will be when my Savior I see in that beautiful city of gold. Let's bow for prayer.

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. We thank you, Lord, for all that you've done for us. We thank you, Lord, for a life full of joy.

But also, Lord, we struggle, but we do thank you even for pain. And we thank you, Lord, for the comfort that you give us in that pain. And thank you for the ability to comfort others, Lord, even though sometimes we struggle to know how, what to say, what not to say.

So I pray that you would help us. Lord, whether this sermon is ministering to people who are themselves grieving, or those who are trying to help those who are grieving, I pray that it would just bear fruit and your kingdom would be built. And Lord, that we would all look forward to that beautiful city, and that we would do what it takes to be on the path that leads to that city.

And if there's any here that are not on that path, you'd get us on that path. Thank you, God, for all you've done. We commit this message to you, commit this time to you, commit each person to you that's here.

In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you all.