Good morning everyone and welcome back to another morning with the masters where we devote ourselves to the Lord daily with you. Good morning you guys.

We are picking up with day 10 of our confessions of God's people that are stuck in the middle which is a fictional writing based off scripture.

This scripture is actually Ruth one and Ruth two definitely recommend you guys read that before we dive in. Yes, but there's a link to the devotional in the description of the podcast if you guys want to follow along with us and I'm going to read some of the scripture and Tori is going to pick up with the divot. Let's do it.

The scripture is Revelation chapter 21 verse 4 and it says this. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.

The devotional is titled Confessions of a bitter widow Naomi she writes God I don't even know why I bother praying right now. I know you made me saved me but I question if you love me.

I don't understand why a limelack had to die he was the love of my life sure he wasn't perfect he often got on my last nerve and drove me crazy but he was my other half we walked through so much together after the funeral everyone was so kind at first bringing me gifts and offering kind words but that's long over now.

Even after our two sons died it was like my heart was already broken and numb to the pain as I watch their two sweet wives grieve it was almost as if I was grateful that someone else was hurting as much as I was. Of course I am heartbroken about losing my two beautiful boys my grief was so consuming that I couldn't even process the loss of my sons I kept telling myself if I could just get back to Judah back where we were from.

Everything would be alright I had to put on a brave face since Ruth insisted on coming with me I'm glad she did or I may have just given up and taken my life on the journey home taking care of her kept my mind sane but coming home fix nothing I am not the same woman.

I won't even let anyone call me Naomi I am Mara now because you have made my life very bitter we had so much hope as a young family off on an adventure when I left I trusted you Lord and now you have brought me back empty you have caused misfortune on me it is all your fault sincerely a bitter widow.

The father rights my daughter Naomi you do not need to hide your emotions or pretend you are not heartbroken I am here I am listening I love that you talk to me even in your bitterness your loyalty is what I've always loved about you cast all your cares on me even if it seems all my fault it is not in my plan for wives to lose their husbands or children

your daughters-in-law should not know this kind of pain and suffering my kingdom has no death morning crying and pain I will wipe every tear from your eyes I am close to the broken hearted and I will heal your injured heart I am using you as a part of my brand story what others don't want I use I love you and I will be the lover of your soul

the strength of your heart and all that you need love your heavenly father yeah this is a tough one it's a reality for so many though it needs to be talked about yeah there were a few things that really stood out to me in the devotional I just want to talk about those but first let me just like you know open up with some sensitivity that we know there are people that are going through loss that listen to this we know that there are people who have family members that are sick we know that this stuff can be triggering yeah

and what we're going to share is of course you know it's hard to process actually my second point I'm actually going to talk about death is not normal it's normal lies because we all experience it but that wasn't like what this devotional mention a part of God's plan and so I just don't want to be insensitive to people with with what I share but the first thing that really stuck out to me was how the author pointed out that God was so happy that Naomi is coming to God with her bitterness right and he wrote

when he wrote thank you that you're coming to me with these thoughts and with these things even if they're directed at me thank you for coming to me yeah yeah and I think that's so important for us to do because I do think that typically the enemy in our weakness and our hardship will want to isolate us and that's not where the last thing we need to be when when we're hurting is alone that's the last place we need to be yeah we'd be with loved ones we need to be with community and more importantly we need to be with God yeah and I really like that it was such an honest letter

of how she's feeling totally and it's real and it's not sugar coded and then the second thing I just wanted to point out just like I mentioned earlier that God's kingdom has no death God's kingdom has no mourning has no crying has no pain that's what that verse and revelation pointed out yeah

here on earth we will experience hardship right even to the point that God himself had to come down and take on death right so that we may have eternal life with him right in his kingdom where there is no more death and no more mourning and no more sadness and no more pain and no more grieving and no more any of that yeah God's kingdom doesn't have that

the earth is broken when sent into the world yeah disease entered the world yeah and these things are quote unquote normal but they shouldn't feel like normal and we see that in scripture yeah the way God responded to Mary or more specifically when the way Jesus responded to Mary yeah

when when Lazarus was dead and he left yeah death is not normal and it hurts all of us yeah and so I think that this could just be a great little thing for us that if we are going through this immediately or if we know someone is going through this

that we do need to talk to God about it but we knew we do need to know that the kingdom that's coming right kingdom of God right doesn't have this inside of it yeah it's one of those things that like it matters like those lives matter the people who were lost like they mattered and when death happens

there is a whole there is this longing for them and like you said it's not normal and it's things that we shouldn't have to experience but unfortunately most of us will experience on this side of heaven

and so reading this story for people who haven't walked through loss or haven't walked through deep grief it's important to recognize that we can

when we do go through that come to God with our frustration and with our sadness and he comes close to us in those times and he's not scared of our emotions

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