Have you ever hurt from the pain of someone you love or care about?  Even little kids know this pain.  It was not uncommon to have a young student at school come up to me when someone they knew had been treated poorly by another child or even from the teacher or a playground adult on duty.  Kids know when someone is mistreated.  God built us to sense each other’s pain.  These are characteristics He gave us which are His own.  He knows our pain and it pains Him too.

My sis who lost her husband the end of April is in the midst of hurting from the loss of Randy.  It doesn’t matter that she knows he is in a better place–with God Himself, she is left without his physical presence.  I feel her pain and pray with her in it.  In my devotions this morning God was showing me another part of Him that I know, but needed to be reminded.  This reminder is that God knows our pain and feels it, and those of us supporting the one hurting need to also praise God.  Praise God that the pain we know might be real, but it is also temporary.  What is eternal is the love and mercy of God.  The pain will subside but God’s love and mercy will never subside.  We know pain because of man’s choices (our own and those before us) to sin.  Death is part of man’s consequences of sin going back to Adam and Eve.  However, God through His love and mercy gave us Jesus to provide the way to God’s eternal love and mercy.

This morning I hurt for my sis but I praised God that Randy is with God now.  We can do the same–praise God from whom all blessings flow!  We can do that for one another when the one who hurts too much can’t praise at the moment.  God knows and understands.  I think that’s why God tells us we are family.  How I love this Heavenly Dad we have.