Interview 2 - David McClurg

0:01 · Speaker 1 good morning everyone. It's great to see you again at Glen Abbey and we are continuing our Story Bears in Every Season series. Last week, if you were here, we listened to a story of dependence, discovering that even in life's fragile seasons, God often meets us most deeply when we realise how much we need him. And today we're going to turn to another season to every one of us. will face at some point in our lives, a season of loss. Loss is one of those experiences that changes us. It doesn't simply take away something from our lives. It changes the way we see and experience life itself.

0:49 · Speaker 1 For many people, grief can feel strange and disorienting because the world will keep moving. while part of your world feels as though it has stopped. Life carries on. People go to work, conversations continue, routines of everyday life remain, yet inside there's a void, inside everything feels different as we try to process and come to terms what we are experiencing and the reality of what has happened. And when it comes to loss, it raises questions that really aren't easy to answer. Where is God in our pain? How do we keep trusting when our hearts are breaking? What does faith really look like when life doesn't turn out the way we had hoped?

1:46 · Speaker 1 And today we're going to hear an honest story of love, of loss, of faith and grief. And we aren't going to rush past any of those things because the Bible doesn't rush us past these things either. It doesn't rush us past people and their grief. Instead, what we discover is a God who meets us right in the middle of it. Not always by removing the pain, but by being present within it. As we said last week, these stories are not stories of perfect people. They're just stories of ordinary people discovering God's grace and presence in every season of life. So why don't you welcome David McClurg as he joins me now for a conversation.

2:45 · Speaker 1 At first service we were chatting a wee bit about just how Al set us up with a doom and gloom kind of setup, but I think we managed to get through it and keep a good balance of a wee bit of humour as well as a wee bit of reality. Is that fair?

2:59 · Speaker 2 Yeah, I think lots of people were crying though.

3:02 · Speaker 1 Lots of people were crying. So David, we're just really thankful for your willingness to sit down and to have this conversation with us today as we think about life after loss. And for those maybe who don't know you, could maybe tell a little bit about your story, tell us a little bit about how you met Liz. and what life was like in the early days.

3:27 · Speaker 2 Okay, this is the hardest part. This is where I have to condense 70 plus years of life into just three or 4 minutes. So we'll start quickly. I was born in 1953, York Park, on the Shore Road in Belfast. My dad had been RAF during the war. and worked in shorts. And mum, she was a hairdresser and she was a trained opera singer as well. And music played a big part in her life growing up.

4:02 · Speaker 2 But mum and dad then had another two sisters, one older, one younger. And that was the family as it was then. We moved from York Park over to Fort William Crescent. Mum and dad, my dad had been Church of Ireland and mum was Presbyterian. So they compromised and went to the Methodist. Now that was fine, only the Methodist was about 1/2 a mile from our house. Mum and dad weren't Christians, they didn't profess faith. But they brought us to church every Sunday morning and we walked that half mile there and half mile back.

4:48 · Speaker 2 In fact, looking back, the only Christian that I can remember in our very wide family circle was my uncle Harry, and he belonged to Fort William Gospel Hall. And so I was sent along to Sunday school and to the children's meetings in the Fort William Gospel Hall. I don't remember much, although I said that My recollection from it was my Sunday school teacher, Mr Conway, sitting with tears in his eyes as he told me of the love of Christ and what Christ had done for me. And it just went over my head and it meant nothing to me. That continued, still going to those meetings and things, until I was about 14. and then I stopped going to church, stopped going to meetings. I didn't do everything that pleased mum and dad, was a bit wayward. Thankfully avoided any criminal convictions, which was important in later life, but not the best of young men.

6:05 · Speaker 2 When I was about 17, a friend of mine was under pressure to go to church. His sister had become a Christian and she was going to Abba's Cross Congregational and said, David, would you come with me, please? So reluctantly I went with Colin to the church and that night the minister spoke and he was just speaking to me. And I know it was God speaking to me. For the following week I just wrestled with the claims of Christ on my life. And I went back the following Sunday and I just made my way into the vestry at the back of the church, just a small room. And Samuel Workman, the Reverend Samuel Workman, led me to the Lord in that little room.

7:02 · Speaker 2 I had no idea, no concept at all of what it meant to be a Christian. And I remember coming out and walking around Rathkill Estate thinking, how am I going to work tomorrow to tell these guys that I have become a Christian? They just would have no concept of what that even meant, nor did I. So that was me. Quickly, my growing in faith and the places that God led me over those next three years or so. I fast forward to when that same friend said he was getting married. And Colin had his wife to be chosen this beautiful bridesmaid and he had asked me to be best man. So I thought that sounds good, I'll do that. And that was the first time I met Liz.

8:03 · Speaker 2 She was absolutely amazing. And we did the wedding as we were walking, same church, same vestry, as we're walking down into it, I stood on her bridesmaid's dress. It didn't rip, so I couldn't understand why I got this withering look from her. And if that had been the only time, David, over the next 40 years, But I got that look. that was just a constant in my life from then on. Liz sort of, I knew she had fallen for me and she tried everything she could to try and sort of, so every time I was going to see Colin, she would have been there. Every time we did something, she would have been there. And on her 21st birthday, she had arranged for Colin to bring her down.

9:06 · Speaker 2 And it was just the four of us. And I sort of was there and had to take her home. She didn't bring her car. So I had to leave her home. And she thought she was great having arranged that. What she didn't know that I had already fallen in love with her. From the minute I saw her, really and truly, I fell in love with her. And that was the start.

9:32 · Speaker 2 I left her home on her 21st birthday. Three months later, we were engaged to be married. And six months after that, we were actually married.

9:42 · Speaker 1 No hanging about there at all.

9:43 · Speaker 2 We don't mess about. Yeah. Or is it when you know, you know. And I knew. So 10 months later, I emphasize, Christine was born. And then two years after that, my son David, so just the two. And I've now got 3 grandchildren. But we were very much involved in church.

10:11 · Speaker 2 The two of us, Liz had been a campaigner leader, that's like the girls brigade or something, but Liz been involved in that and I was teaching Bible class and was a deacon in the church, church secretary. So her life very much revolved around the church. She gave up work when she was having the babies and she took fibromyalgia when she was about 30 and never really got back to working, which was good in that because I was away so much from home, She was always there and my work took me away. So things that just progressed from there and we just continued on with the Lord in that.

11:01 · Speaker 1 I know with our conversations that we had in preparation just how much Liz meant to you and that will continue to come through in our conversation. But can you maybe take us back to when everything changed and tell us about that journey, part of the journey?

11:15 · Speaker 2 Yeah. As I said, work took me away quite a bit, and as the kids were sort of able to look after themselves, Liz would have come away with me to various places that I was going. So we were able to leave the kids to look after themselves from where they were about 10 or 11, and they were grand. And Liz travelled all over with me. Remember the New York Marathon? I went to run the New York Marathon and she went with me and I ran around and never saw her and got back and I said, well, where were you? And she said, I was just down the street from Macy's. I wasn't going to stand and wait for you.

12:00 · Speaker 2 So she was always supportive. But that day, The sort of how we got the news of the cancer was we were on holidays in Naples in Florida. We were over for a friend's daughter's wedding and we were walking along and the beautiful sun was just going down, remembered so clearly. But the next morning Liz woke with bites down her leg and very severe. We went then to a clinic, it was the 4th of July, nowhere was open. 4th of July we went, we found this clinic, they took my credit card and then decided that was okay to treat Liz. So they did all sorts of blood tests and they gave her steroids and antibiotics and we got through the holiday but they advised her as soon as she got home to go and see her doctor and get her bloods tested. I believe that they found something at that point.

13:08 · Speaker 2 So when we got home, Liz got the bloods tested and then we went up to the hospital. We were asked to go up to the hospital to see the consultant and the consultant said, I don't know why you're here. Antrim don't treat people with kidney cancer, that has to be in the city hospital. And we were referred to the city hospital. So that was how we found out about the cancer. And then up to the city and from there the treatment started.

13:43 · Speaker 1 Can you maybe share a little bit about what you remember most from those early days after receiving that news?

13:49 · Speaker 2 Yeah, in the hospital, Liz, just three days later, collapsed from sepsis. So just after the diagnosis, three days later, she collapsed with sepsis, was rushed to the matter. First time I'd ever been in an ambulance. We got in and we thought we were going to lose her then, but she pulled through and then they rushed her to try and get the treatment as quickly as possible. She hadn't fully recovered when we got back to the city to have her kidney removed. I remember going home, as Al said, it never rains but it pours sometimes. And in the middle of all that, I arrived home to find the house was burgled and all our jewellery had been taken.

14:45 · Speaker 2 And I remember standing at the back door, just throwing my hands up in the air and saying, oh Lord, how could you? And Liz never experienced She was so strong all the way through, she really was. So after that, was out of the hospital after the kidney operation, but the cancer had spread and she started then on the chemo.

15:12 · Speaker 1 You alluded there a little bit about how she was so strong, her faith was so strong. Can you maybe share a little bit of what stands out the most to you about the way she handled that particular part of the journey.

15:26 · Speaker 2 She took every opportunity, either in hospital or in hospice, wherever she was, to speak about the Lord. And I remember just, so we were in November of that year, she was, this is just shortly after the operation, and she was told she was going to start the chemo by tablet form. And we went then in December, She was standing up in front of church, Carrickfergus Baptist. And she was standing up in front of the church, telling the people what was happening, thanking God for her life and just asking for prayer as she went ahead. So we were to start the tablet send on the 1st of January. And as I say, she was speaking at church and still so strong in her faith. She was amazing and I was just absolutely rubbish.

16:20 · Speaker 1 It's an interesting phrase that she was amazing and you were absolute rubbish. What do you mean by that?

16:26 · Speaker 2 Well, I thought part of my job had been supporting widows during bereavements and things and helping with pensions and I thought I was so strong and so capable. I mean, dealing with death had been something that I was used to and pain and suffering. But From the minute Liz had her diagnosis, it was different because it was about me. It was her illness, but I felt it so bad. I went to pieces. One instance was when she was about to take the first tablet, the first chemo tablet, we sat down to pray. And I started and I got about two or three words out and I just broke down in pieces. She took over and prayed and she was amazing.

17:23 · Speaker 1 You shared a little story with me about coming home, as you like to do, to surprise her, but you find her just praising the Lord.

17:33 · Speaker 2 What was that like? Well, that was a constant with her. She loved to sing and she played the piano and sang. And I would have sort of I never grew up, really. I was always an idiot. And the guys that were away in Munich with me will testify to that. But she was singing in the sunroom and the gettys were on top of her voice and her hands in the air praising God in the midst of what she was going through.

18:08 · Speaker 2 And I used to just sneak into the house and scare her. Yeah. That's what I did. But her faith was just unshakable. She was lovely.

18:20 · Speaker 1 Wonderful. Obviously she ended up at hospice. Do you want to maybe share a little bit about those final weeks?

18:29 · Speaker 2 Yeah. The hospice was in White Abbey Hospital at the time. It wasn't in the lovely new building and it was Pretty bad circumstances. They hadn't got everything in. No beds for people to lie on, so you're sitting in chairs and things. But not the patients, the visitors were in the chairs. But Liz had been attending day hospice for almost three years. The doctors had said that the chemo tablets would give her three months to three years.

19:02 · Speaker 2 And for those almost three years, she attended the day hospice. And my good friend Jim Armstrong, he was the chaplain in the hospice. And Liz ended up playing piano and singing for Jim at their lunchtime meetings. And when she was brought into the hospice and lying in the bed, all the ones from the day hospice came down to see her. And they were going, yeah, lovely. So I looked at my watch, it was about 2:00 and they were going home. And I said, Liz, how come, love, that they were all going home at 2:00 when you went to day hospice, you didn't get home to five? And she said, but Cheryl was so close to the Abbey Centre, it would have been a shame not to go.

19:49 · Speaker 2 And she managed to, they were tough, the five or six weeks that she was in the hospice at the end watching her deteriorate. Two or three times they sent for us and said that it wouldn't be long, and she would bounce back. I remember saying to her, what happened? And she said, I heard somebody talking about cheesecake, and I thought I would just come back and get some cheesecake. So, yeah.

20:24 · Speaker 1 See a sense of humour.

20:25 · Speaker 2 Which I had to be married to me. She had no choice.

20:30 · Speaker 1 Obviously, Liz went to be with the Lord. Can you maybe share a little bit about what life felt like at that point and in the days afterwards?

20:42 · Speaker 2 Yeah. I remember in her order of service at the funeral, she had chosen the hymns and I put in the order of service the apostle's creed. And it's not the dumb thing in a Baptist church to have the apostle's creed. But it was the line, I believe, and that's what sustained me, I believe in the resurrection of the body and in life eternal. And I had no doubt that that's what Liz's experience was. She hadn't died. She had departed this life to be with the Lord, as Paul said. So that side of it, I rejoice that Liz was with her Saviour.

21:33 · Speaker 2 the loneliness, getting into the empty house and just the loneliness of all of that was, I found really difficult.

21:44 · Speaker 1 So it's almost 11 years. What remains the hardest part for you?

21:52 · Speaker 2 I still miss her every day. It hasn't got easier with the years passing. It's got different. When we were away in Munich there, I was away in Munich with our home group and some other guys came along with us. But we were sitting at a lake looking up on the Alps and it was just beautiful. It was one of those moments, I think it was Richard Baxter, the old Puritan who used the phrase, all this and heaven too. And we're just, I was just so captivated by God's creation and what he had done that it was just one of those moments of just, oh, this is so wonderful. And we come back and we're dropping some of the lads off and Rob dropped off and I was driving up the North Road in Carrick to go back to my empty house.

22:50 · Speaker 2 And I just filled with tears as I thought, she's not there and I'm just going home. I can't tell her just how wonderful that trip was. And so it's just out of the blue things just happened. I was on Friday, I was driving along and Robbie Burns' song, My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose was being sung on the radio. And when it came to the line, and I will love thee still, my dear, till all the sea's going dry. And Yeah, that's just hit me that I will love her all my life. And don't get me wrong, they're not. all moments of real grief.

23:40 · Speaker 2 I love to talk of her and I love to think of her. And for 40 years I was so blessed to have had this woman in my life. I have a young friend who just lost his wife last year. And he had her for five years and has a wee child of three. So I just realized 40 years was such a blessing to have had that amazing woman.

24:11 · Speaker 1 Can you maybe share a little bit about the role that faith has played in helping you navigate this particular difficult season?

24:22 · Speaker 2 Throughout, for many, many years before Liz was even ill, I've always used McShane's daily readings. McShane's readings, if you're not aware of them, So it just breaks down, taking you through the Bible in a year and the New Testament twice in that year and the Psalms twice. But it gives you 4 chapters a day and you get Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms. It's great. I always find it so useful for my daily readings that, because if you were trying to read through the Bible, you got to Leviticus and stopped. Whereas this one took you one chapter in Leviticus and then gave you a psalm and gave you something from the New Testament, which broke it down lovely. So I always felt that was something that I did every day. And I continued doing that.

25:19 · Speaker 2 Even when Liz was in the hospice, we did it. And when she died, then throughout those early days, I had been sitting, reading my Bible, sometimes with floods of tears, as I read it, my go-to would have been the Psalms, just those Psalms of lament, where half of the book of Psalms are Psalms of lament, and just crying out to God and all of that, as the Psalms did, bringing it to the Lord. I mean, they were going to the right place when they were crying out. They were crying to the Lord, and that was something that I prayed the Psalms, they were my prayer book, as they were for the Lord when he was on earth. I love the thought of the Lord Jesus sitting, singing the Psalms, you know. So it was that the word of God was such a comfort to me.

26:20 · Speaker 1 And then can you share maybe a bit about people and how they played a role? for you both then and continuing.

26:35 · Speaker 2 People are extremely important. I believe in coping with grief. I get my energy from being with people and I just find that friends that were there for Liz during the time that she was ill and the support that she had from some wonderful people and then the people who gathered round and were supporting me. One of the strangest things was how God has, in the 11 years almost that I've been without Liz. I mean, I was 47 years. It was Liz Kerry Baptist. We were married in the old church down in the North Road. And for 47 years, I went to the Baptist church and was involved in everything.

27:26 · Speaker 2 And just around COVID, God started showing me that and somehow or other I ended up sitting in a seat over here one Sunday morning and it was a seat where Liz and I had sat with David and Pamela Curry to hear the Gettys. And how that happened, the things that God brought me through and led me through for me to be here, They were just strange circumstances, but it was God-led. And the fellowship that I've known here, the people that have surrounded me, our home group that we were away with there, the home group, the guys, the girls, they're just amazing. We don't just simply meet for our Bible studies and our going through God's word. as Stephen Cave put it, we do life together and it has been such a blessing to me. And being involved, one of the things that has greatly helped me is helping others. So working with the refugees and the Monday Walking Group, doing that, the conversation cafe with the refugees, other things that we're involved with in the church and reaching out. I think So for me, that is one of the things that has really helped us, being with people and the support that we've had.

28:55 · Speaker 1 Maybe as we round out the conversation, is there something you'd like to say to someone who's maybe here this morning that's carrying grief today and wondering how do they keep trusting in God in the midst of how they are feeling and their struggles?

29:12 · Speaker 2 I think looking back over the journey that I've had these years. It's almost as if I can see how the Lord has just carried me through. There were times when I was so down and so low and just knowing that sense of comfort and it reminds me of a hymn Now this shows my age, but I've told you what age I am, so I'm not embarrassed about that. This will let you realise how old I am. A.R. Cousins wrote a hymn about the life of Samuel Rutherford, one of the old Puritans. And one of the verses in that is, with mercy and with judgment, my web of time he wove. And I, the Jews of sorrow, were lustered by his love.

30:08 · Speaker 2 I'll bless the hand that guided I bless the heart that planned when throned where glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land. And it's that realisation that he has brought me through all of this and led me on. But for someone here, and I know so many people are coping with grief, I'm not an example and that's not what we intended. This is just my story. It's how God has led me and brought me through. Everybody's grief is different. Everybody copes in a different way. The lovely thing is that your father knows that.

30:52 · Speaker 2 Your father knows what's needed and how he needs to bring you through differently from what I did. But I was doing my daily readings, so as you don't think, My goodness, this guy's really educated. I'm not. I was doing the daily readings and it referred to the Heidelberg Catechism. So some of your Presbyterians maybe are aware of the Westminster Catechism that you're taught as kids. The Heidelberg predated that just to the end of time of the Reformation. And the first question in the Heidelberg Catechism is, what is your only comfort in life and in death? What is your only comfort in life and in death?

31:41 · Speaker 2 And the answer is this, that I am not my own, but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Because I belong to him, Christ by his Holy Spirit also assures me of eternal life.

32:05 · Speaker 1 Wonderful.

32:06 · Speaker 2 That's my story.

32:07 · Speaker 1 Well, why don't we thank David for sharing with us this morning. Al's going to lead us in just a song that will help us reflect a little bit, and then I'm going to come back and kind of sum things up before we finish. We're going to sing this Psalms 130, really. So let's stand together, please.

32:55 · Speaker 3 Out of the depths I cry to you, darkness places I will call. Incline your ear to me anew and hear my cry for mercy, Lord. Were you to count my sinful ways? How could I come before your throne? Yet the forgiveness meets my gaze I stand redeemed by grace the Lord I will wait for you I will wait for you On your word I will rely I will wait for you Surely wait for you Till my soul is satisfied Put your hope in God alone Take courage in his part to say Completely and forever won

34:29 · Speaker 3 Like Christ emerging from your grave I will wait for you I will wait for you On your word I will rely I will wait for you Surely wait for you Till my soul is satisfied Now He has come to make a way And God Himself has paid the price That all who trust Him today By kneeling in his sacrifice I will wait for you I will wait for you On your word I will rely I will wait for you Surely wait for you Till my soul is satisfied I will wait for you, I will wait for you Through the storm and through the night I will wait for you, surely wait for you For your love is my life I will wait for you, I will wait for you Through the storm and through the night I will wait for you, surely wait for you For your love is my love

37:09 · Speaker 3 Please have your seats.

37:19 · Speaker 1 I should say before you all get worried at the time, we did start a wee bit late. But we're not going to be spending too long. I just want to bring a few reflections off the back of David sharing his story with us. And there are a few truths that I think are helpful for us to be reminded of as we consider this season of loss that we've been talking about this morning. And the first one is this whole idea of God being near. So one of the things I love about Psalms 34 is what it doesn't say. We have these words, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. What it doesn't say is it doesn't say the Lord keeps his people from ever being brokenhearted.

38:07 · Speaker 1 It doesn't say the Lord removes every sorrow immediately. It doesn't say the Lord always explains why suffering happens. Instead it says, the Lord is close. He's near. And the context of Psalms 34 makes an even more powerful statement because King David wrote these words after one of the lowest moments of his life. He was running for his life, afraid, vulnerable, broken. And looking back in that experience, he says, the Lord is close. Not distant, not indifferent, not absent, close.

38:46 · Speaker 1 And sometimes when life falls apart, the deepest question is not why, it's where. is God? Where is God when a diagnosis comes? Where is God when someone we love is suffering? Where is God when we sit in a hospital car door? Where is God when we return to an empty house? Where is God when grief catches us years later, when we least expect it? And Psalms 34 gives us that answer.

39:13 · Speaker 1 He is. near, present with us at all times. But the other thing that we also can consider this morning is the fact that Jesus understands. There's something so remarkable that the Lord not only draws near to us, he's not distant from suffering himself. He understands it because he's experienced it. And one of the shortest verses in the Bible, we could probably all quote that. Jesus wept. He stands at Lazarus' grave.

39:51 · Speaker 1 He sees grief. He sees tears. He sees heartbreak. And what's his response? His response is to weep. Think about that. The Son of God enters fully into human sorrow. and emotion, understanding grief, understanding loss, understanding disappointment, understanding what it is to lose someone you love.

40:16 · Speaker 1 And that means for us there is no pain we carry that Jesus cannot understand, no grief that surprises him, no sorrow that leaves him unable to sympathise with us. And that matters because sometimes people think faith means pretending we have everything together, everything's okay, we can handle this. But the Bible never asks us to do that. Jesus doesn't stand at an empty or at the tomb and tell everyone, stop crying. He joins them in their grief, despite knowing the miracle he's about to perform when he calls Lazarus to rise. And I think the tears of Jesus remind us that grief is not a failure of faith, but tears are simply the evidence that we are loved deeply. If we didn't love, we wouldn't grieve.

41:20 · Speaker 1 And David's story has reminded us that 11 years later, he still misses Liz. He still wishes he could tell her things. He still feels that ache of her absence. That isn't weakness, that's love. And Jesus understands. So God is near. He's close. Jesus understands.

41:42 · Speaker 1 But we have a hope. The story doesn't end with the tears. And this is what makes our faith so unique and important. As Jesus weeps, We also know that Jesus is the one who conquers death. The same Jesus who stood at Lazarus' tomb and cried for him to come out of the grave is the same Jesus who was laid in a tomb on Good Friday but walked out of that tomb on Easter Monday. And because he lives, death is not the end of the story. The hope ran right the way through David's conversation. He spoke honestly about grief, honestly about loneliness, honestly about love, but underneath it all there's this deeper confidence.

42:23 · Speaker 1 Liz is with the Lord. Christ has conquered death. Because he lives, we also can't live if we put our trust in him. And one day we will meet him. The apostle Paul writes, we do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope. He doesn't say we do not grieve. Of course we grieve, we cry, we mourn, we miss people, our hearts break. But we grieve differently.

42:53 · Speaker 1 Not because the pain is smaller or it hurts less, but because death does not have the final word. Jesus has defeated it and resurrection is coming. Because one day every goodbye in Christ will be a reunion with him. Isn't that amazing? And perhaps that's what some of us need to be reminded of today. If you're heartbroken, God is near. If you're hurting, Jesus understands. And if you're grieving, there is always hope, real hope rooted in a risen Saviour, rooted in an empty tomb, rooted in the promise that one day Christ will make all things new.

43:33 · Speaker 1 And as we close, I think this is a challenge for us as church together. We're called to carry one another. One of the hardest parts of grief is isolation. I'm sure you got a sense of that as David spoke. And people often feel alone in what they are carrying. And this is where we can make a real difference. We're reminded in Romans by Paul to mourn with those who mourn, and in Galatians to carry each other's burdens, and in this way you fulfill the law of Christ. And it's striking that Paul's saying we fulfill the law of Christ.

44:10 · Speaker 1 when we carry other people's burdens. Earlier in that letter, he spoke about how the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. And what was that command? To love your neighbor as yourself. And if ever we need to hear that message, we need to hear today. The law of Christ is essentially the command Jesus gave. Love one another as I have loved you. And the idea of burden bearing is more than kindness.

44:39 · Speaker 1 It's the practical expression of Christ's love. We're not called to fix people. We're not called to rush them. We're not called to give easy answers. We're simply called to mourn with them. And sometimes the most Christ-like thing we can do is be present, listen, sit, pray, to touch base in a couple of weeks. How you doing?

45:07 · Speaker 1 Presence matters because it expresses love. And perhaps today God is calling us to be present in someone's life and circumstances, to carry a burden, to be present. Let's take time to pray together. Father, We want to thank you for the moments we've had today to worship you, to consider the rain, the heavy rain, going deeper into the storm. We thank you for how Alice led our thoughts. And we thank you for David and his openness to share his story. Such a personal story, but yet such a powerful story.

45:56 · Speaker 1 We thank you for his late wife, Liz, rejoicing in the glory But her legacy lives on. Her impact because of her faith lives on. Thank you for the witness she continues to be. And so today, Lord, we want to thank you that you are close to the brokenhearted. You're not far away. We thank you that you understand. You understand right where we are today. Lord, we thank you that you give us real hope.

46:36 · Speaker 1 And we thank you for the challenge that we are here to be with each other, to be present in each other's lives. So Lord, will you take what has been shared this morning and speak into each of our lives in a way that will help us to grow deeper in our understanding of who you are? and how deeply you love us and promise to be with us in every circumstance we face in life. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.