SPCK - When a loved one has died

When a loved one has died

For some, words may be the way to manage loss
The way to handle grief
Words spoken: stuttering, covering silence, skirting the void
Words thought: because we train ourselves to argue out our feelings

But death is not met by words
Words cannot go where death takes us
The time for words will come
For now, let our thoughts be what they will
Let our feelings be
Let our prayers be deeper than we alone can conjure up
Let time play its role.

I am here
Because I loved ***
Here I will mourn him/her leaving me,
Honour his/her life,
And pray for comfort.
I come, believing that all human life is valuable,
That the truth and integrity and hopefulness
Which lives in each life, lives on.
I come, believing that ***'s life,
Which I remember today
And for which I now experience great loss,
Is joined with all life,
Stretching into the past and into the future.
His/her life was lived in its uniqueness with me
And now rests secure in the loving hands of God.

Dorothy McRae-McMahon, Liturgies for the Young in Years

O God I pray...

O God, I pray that you will care for ***
In ways that I have not been able to do,
And that your love will be with me now
And with all who grieve the loss of family or friend.
Give me your gifts so I am able to take up my life
In ways which are strong and true
And which carry me into the hope of the future.
I pray in the name of Jesus, who wept for the loss of a friend.

Dorothy McRae-McMahon, Liturgies for the Young in Years