Thomas You know I have a personal understanding of grief and loss but I thought I might share a backsliders view of grief with your readers. In the last 24 months I have personally lost a dear lady that I provided care to. I set with her hour after hour and was there when they turned of the machines and even though I grieved I knew it was a better place for her with no pain and suffering anymore and after 50+ years of painful rhuemetoid arthritis she deserved a little peace. shortly after she died a friend that I had turned my back on due to his alchohol problems committed suicide and I was attending another funeral. And while it was a different kind of grief I seemed to move through it quickly since he made the choice not to be here 3 months later My sweet and funny and faithful father in law died comfortably in his sleep Since world war the man had lived everyday with pain from a grenade going off near his legs in some wet cold trench and yet he still believed that God had given him a mission he became a four square minister and was our families rock until the end. Again I knew that he was in a better place with no more pain. This death made sense. I still believed that God knew what he was doing and everything was going according to his Plan. 3 months later my best friend calls and asks me to be her labor coach This was a miracle we had been praying for 6 years to happen.We were grateful that God had seen fit to answer our request. Then 2 weeks before Noah was to be born we found out through a special sonegram that she didn't have enough fluid and that Noah would be born with no lung tissue at all. This miracle that we had been praying for all these years had vanished as quickly as it came. I watched and helped her get through the next 2 weeks knowing this baby was going to be born with great pain both physical and mental They made her go through labor and delivery and we set holding this in every other way perfect baby as he slipped away. This is where my faith started to waiver I left that room angry with a God who would offer such a miracle and then pull the rug out from under this poor woman. What kind of loving God does that? Three days later My oldest son called and said Mom I don't know how to say this but Grandma died just a little while ago. Again I was devasted that the one person in the world who might have been able to get me to see the wisdom of God's plan with that baby was gone. After 21 years of fighting luekemia and raising 7 children while helping my father to launch his business and who even until the end was his answering service and all the while believing that God knew what he was doing and believed that she has survived as long as she did because God had a Plan. Following her light has always been easy and now that light was gone. The world became a really dark place but I was still able to be glad that she was no longer in pain and that she didn't have to take all the drugs anymore and that she was with her parents and the Grammy she loved so much and I began to heal although I still miss her. Then just as I was learning to live a life without my rock my world to not need to pick up the phone and call her for my daily dose of faith and love God knocked my down again and this time I am not sure I am going to be able to get up and find my faith again. This time he took something so precious to me that I can not forgive him or even think of God without anger Less than one year after I lost my moral compass and rock God in his infinite wisdom chose to take my little boy 21 years old married and with a whole life in front of him. He took my oldest son and for what? What was his so called plan there Am I to believe that this loving GOD had a plan for me Well I am so very sorry I don't get it I will never understand how HE expects me to want to love HIM when all he does is take from me the things that matter most. Now you have death from a daughter a friend a parent and backsliders point of view Thanks for listening to the ramblings of a grieving mother Love mamajena

Hey Jena its never a rambling when your talking about true life situations, we all need help in this world and the first thing to do is to share of ones life experiances, its the only way to get on with living for our grand entrance to heaven one day! I taught a lesson yesterday on learning through hard times as i discussed this to 300 of our fellow members, first time too, usually its smaller but my point is that we need reassurance from the help of friends and our foes to learn how to forgive, lessons from someone who  wronged youlike i have been in the last month has made me a stronger person in my Faith, it taught me how to grow in my understanding of what a so -called friend can be, this is not pick your part this is much more of a personal heart issue and if you cant learn to forgive like God wants you to, your life will never change, Only God can forgive if you from that sin you hold, if first you learn how to forget. I count my cost of living my spiritual life every single day, seen many in my time of deaths and drug use, i am lookinging after a grandmothe of 93 and a brother who has level 3 skytzerfrenia, if i spelled that correctly ? i dont think i did but this is how and i can show you. Thank you for sharing i know now what i must pray for. God_bless you. Keep in touch!!