Poppy and CC's Corner: Something to be thankful for

In the months following the loss of my sweet Cheryl I struggled greatly with praying. We had just spent the past three years of life, praying earnestly for one of her treatments to extend her quality of life, or we were even bold enough to pray that she might be cured. God knows she suffered greatly from both the disease and the treatments. Our prayers seemed unanswered as she fought and she kept losing her battles.

During those first few months after she left us, I would begin a prayer and then I would stop at the part where I thanked God, but I couldn't go further, because I was so wounded and decimated by her loss that I could think of nothing to be thankful for. Dave had left us a year before and Ted had succumbed to Covid-19 just four months before Cheryl passed. Filled with grief and self-pity, the wheels just stopped. I had nothing to be thankful for.

This continued for six months and my prayers became ineffective. I also couldn't sing and I have been singing all my life. Whenever I would try to sing a song I used to sing to her, my voice would crack and I would burst into tears. I was a man of ineffectual prayer and incapable of singing God's praises. Not much to be thankful for.

I would like to tell you that I experienced a lighting-bolt moment where God pierced the darkness with a flash of brilliant light, but that isn't what happened. Nothing like it, five or six months after she checked into Heaven, I was still trying to be thankful for something. When my prayer broke down, around Christmas, I also broke down as I thought of her and Ted and Dave and the wonderful Christmases we had spent in the past.

I wept and started down the same old path when all of a sudden, the obvious truth fell on me like a load of bricks. God had given me over 75 years of brotherly love with Ted, over 52 years with a devoted son, and 27 of the most wonderful years in my life with the woman He had put there. I have much to be thankful for and I now thank God every day for the companion, best friend, counselor, adviser and everything else she was to me. I now pray, "Thank you Jesus for the best 27 years of my life"

Much to be thankful for as another Thanksgiving Day dawns.

Psalm 100: 1-5

1 Make ba joyful shout to the Lord, 1all you lands!

2 Serve the Lord with gladness;

Come before His presence with singing.

3 Know that the Lord, He is God;

cIt is He who has made us, and 2not we ourselves;

dWe are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

4 eEnter into His gates with thanksgiving,

And into His courts with praise.

Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

5 For the Lord is good;