#Truth is every #death reminds you of all the ones that came before. Like the premature removal of a scab before the wound has been fully healed that was held together with a bandage that ripped your skin while exposing the wound.
Im not professing to tell you anything you don’t already know and haven’t experienced, but I bear witness to the pain and to the grief.

The 1st death I remember was my 96 year old grandfather, the Reverend Henry Allen Belin, Sr. in 1974. I was 9. My family has always been crazy close knit and everyone was heartbroken, devastated, inconsolable. We had just come from Baton Rouge and by the time we got home they called and said he died. Being a kid, I took my cues from my parents. (Because folk live well into their 90s doesn’t mean the grief is easier to bear)

We went back to Baton Rouge, the church my granddaddy built and the place where we celebrated his life well lived. It’s the same thing my family has done for James DaJames, Jake Auntie Mae, Glenn, Grandmama, UncleSL and what we will do for Haskin Payne III.
We will Celebrate the incredible human being that God created, the way he loved Cassandra and his sons, the way he cherished his mom Pat, Rochelle and Helah, the way that whenever you saw him it was like you had just spoken the day before, the way that he embraced life and living.
What I am saying, brothers and sisters, the Bible says flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

#Icanhelpyouifyouletme #grief #JournalYourGrief #BearWitness #YouAreNotAlone #Praying for the Comforter to come. #BelinFamilyValues #grief