PATCHED WITH GOD’S STRENGTH

"Thou, Lord, hast helped me, and comforted me."  (Psalm 86:17)

When I was growing up, my Mother's mending basket, laden with torn socks from a husband and seven children, waited by the green chair under a lamp in the living room.  In the evenings she would sit there, sock pulled over a darning egg, and skillfully repair the holes with soft thread.  When she was finished, the sock had a new heel or toe that was stronger than the original.

After I got married, Mother gave me a darning egg and thread to mend Whitney's socks.  I tried, but the holes bunched into knots.  I didn't have Mother's skill, so I threw away the old socks and bought new ones.  But I kept the darning egg, a wooden contraption with a handle.  It reminds me of the holes -- the losses -- in my life that nothing but God can fill.

Our triplets, Whitney, Jr., Patrick and Douglas, were born prematurely in 1970.  One after the other, at different times and from different causes, they died.  Staring into that awful hole of loss drove me to God.  As I sat in His presence, I felt, slowly, threads of comfort weaving through my pain, tugging at me to accept what I could not understand.  The pain has never entirely gone away.  But I've come through it patched with God's strength and woven with the certain hope that my loss is temporary: My three boys are safe and loved on the other shore.

"Comforter, in Jesus, our loss -- God's loss -- is turned to gain.  Thank You for consoling me."

-- Shari Smyth


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