Letter from The MinisterRevd Bruce Waldron - October 2004
All Saints - a Celebration of Life
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On the 31st October, the Sunday nearest to All Saints Day, Emmanuel Church will hold a special Service of Thanksgiving for the people who have contributed to our lives with love. |
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| This is a particular time to remember people who have been very important to us, and whose presence we now miss. It will be a time to thank God for those people and to reflect on what it is that they have given to us by their living. It will also be a time to thank God that we have been able to contribute to their life. | ||||
| Remembering people who have died is not a morbid exercise. It is an opportunity to thank God for someone whose life has made a difference to us, a celebration of something wonderful that has been and has affected us deeply, and positively, in ways that we never fully understand. | ||||
| Remembering people who have been very special to us, and have died, is also a time to re-affirm in our own minds that we have been able to give to them something quite unique. Our lives have been a blessing to them in their living, and this is important to remember and to thank God that it has been so. | ||||
| Bereavement can be devastating and the process of re-adjustment of every part of our lives that bereavement often requires can be exhausting. It is important to remember in this exhausting and sometimes bewildering process, that the difficulties and struggles are there because we have been a blessing to the person who has died and they have been a blessing to us. Their life has been a precious gift to us from God, as has ours to them. | ||||
| This service will be an opportunity to celebrate that reality, to affirm it, to reflect on it. People who are coming to that service will have an opportunity to bring a prayer, to light a candle in memory and thankfulness, to share in an affirmation of the gift of life that God has given, and how that life has been a blessing and how your life has also been a blessing. | ||||
| We will come, not to mourn the death of those we loved but to celebrate their living. | ||||
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