The Balm for Our Hurting Souls

God gives us each other to live life with, the joys and the sorrows.

By: Rebecca Little, lower elementary principal

Our covenant family returns from spring break with heavy hearts. In losing another of our dearly loved parents, there are no words I write that can ease the grief, sorrow, and pain that we are experiencing. Only God’s words, His promises, and the Holy Spirit can bring us the balm for our hurting souls. This world we live in is broken yet temporary. Let us keep our eyes focused on the great hope we have for eternity.

As Douglas McKelvey shares in his Liturgy for Dying Well from his work Every Moment Holy …

“So use even these days of hard experience,

O Spirit of God, to further your sanctifying

work in me. Convince me ever more firmly of

my great need, and of your great grace,

of my own sin and weakness,

and of your strength and forgiveness;

of my own utter helplessness,

and of your merciful provision.

I entrust all things to you, Jesus.

For you are the Captain

of my passage through this storm.

You are the King

who leads me home from lonely exile.

You are the Lover

who embraces me in the midst of my grief.

You are the Redeemer

of all lost and broken things

now yearning to be made new.

Your mercies are everlasting and your promises are true.

You are the very author of life, and

the conqueror of death, who has promised

to remake this world, this sky, these gardens

and cities and stars, and also, yes, my own

failing flesh, raising it new and imperishable.

So seal my heart unto that day, O Christ.

So inhabit these holy spaces,

these hardships and sorrows,

this precious hope of glory.

So cradle me in my present frailties.

So commune with me in my grief.

So shepherd my passing.

So command my resurrection.

Amen.”

God Gives Us Each Other

Over the course of this year, there have been crises, trials, and deep valleys that ones in our school have faced. Each of these times, I have witnessed the covenant family being the hands and feet of Jesus during the suffering and heartache. We, as the body of Christ, come together in times of need using our spiritual gifts to serve, encourage, support, and love.

It is a beautiful picture of the love of Jesus being demonstrated. We love because He first loved us. We serve because He came to serve. We mourn with those who mourn. We also share in the joy of others. We need each other because God designed us to be in fellowship with one another.

God, in His providence and sovereignty, gives us each other to live life with, the joys and the sorrows, and I am profoundly grateful.

Thank you, Perimeter School, for loving, serving, and caring without hesitation and with open hearts and hands. May we together always remember to lean on the everlasting love of Jesus and to know that our true help comes from the Lord.

He is our rock, our sure foundation, who never leaves us or forsakes us.

To God be the glory!