Madi & Friends

Early Morning

Heart and prayers with her family and friends, especially with my dear friend Rev Ray, as Madison sleeps and peacefully slips away into God’s eternity. 

The most terrible thing in life is to suffer the loss of a cherished and beloved child; and the most difficult part of ministry is being with friends and family through a child’s dying and death. It’s wrenching to go through the internalization that brings flooding back all the other times through the years. 

In a months-long, searing ministry course called Clinical Pastoral Education, we are trained, educated, practice over and over these experiences with real people, patients and their families and friends, and with a small group of colleagues under close supervision, in hospitals and other institutions, so that when we face the situations on our own we find ourselves fairly confident and competent in the darkness.

Madi, as her friends call her, was in a car crash, with unsurvivable injuries. She will bless many others with living gifts of life and sight.

My prayer, adapted from our prayerbook, is always, and is now this early morning for her

Depart in peace from this world, dear Christian soul, in the name of God the Father who created you, in the name of + God the Son who redeemed you, in the name of God the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you. May your resting place be in the paradise of God, and may your company be His saints and holy angels. May the Lord + bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you, the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon you and give you peace, now and throughout the ages of ages. In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

TW+