Hi, and welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. I'm Elisa Morgan, and I titled

Today's Reading, A Glossary for Grief. When you and Dede released their only child to heaven,

they struggled with what to call themselves in the aftermath.

There is no specific word in the English language to describe a parent who was lost a child.

A wife without her husband is a widow. A husband without his wife is a widower. A child bereft of

parents is an orphan. A parent whose child has died

is an undefined hollow of hurt. Miscarriage, sudden infant death, suicide, illness, accident. Death

steals a child from this world and then robs the surviving parents of an expressed identity.

And yet God himself understands such devastating grief as his only son, Jesus, called to him

while dying on the cross, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. God was father before Jesus' earthly birth,

and remained Father when Jesus released his final breath. God continued as Father

when the still body of his son was laid in a tomb. God lives on today as Father of a risen son who brings every parent the hope that a child

can live again. What do you call a heavenly father who sacrifices his son for the universe? For you

and for me? Father, still, father. When there are no words in the glossary of grief to describe the

pain of loss, God is our father and calls us his children.

Today's our daily bread devototional Scripture reading is from Luke chapter 23 verses 44 through 46.

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining, and the curtain of the

temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I commit my

spirit. When he had said this, he breathed his last.

Let's pray.

God, for those of us who have lost a child or a grandchild or someone else so precious to us, Lord,

may we lean into your father care, the fact that you promised to continue as our father, and that you promise to continue to identify us as your children, no matter what happens in this world and

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