Dear Reader,

If you have not lost a parent, this may sound like church language laid over an absence. If you have, you will hear the pause between the giving and the taking. That pause is the whole poem. I repeat the words because once is not enough, and because Job said them first, standing in a ruin, and somehow they did not break. I am trying to stand the same way. Blessed be the name—not as a denial of tears, but as a way to keep speaking while the tears are still coming.

Job 1:21
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

Revelation 21:4
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.

The Lord gives.
The Lord takes.
Blessed be the name of our God.

If it is a mother He takes—
the Lord gives,
the Lord takes.
Blessed be the name of our God.

If it is a father—
the Lord gives,
the Lord takes.
Blessed be the name of our God.

Yes, we grieve.
We are earthly still,
and made of dust.But oh—
what wonders they are seeing now.
What company of the holy
leans in to speak with them.
What bodies they wear:
glorified,
healed,
whole,
and young.

No more pain.
No more suffering.
No more weight of the world
on the shoulders we knew.

They are with their Creator.

The Lord gives.
The Lord takes.
Blessed be the name of our God.

**To God be the glory always and only!