So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

John 16:22

I think the hardest thing about this week is the grief my mother is going through. It’s not that she can’t accept that 94 years meets and exceeds any definition or expectation of a good, long life – it’s that they have been essentially inseparable since she was 17. That’s 74 years. The hole in her life is beyond huge.

I’m not sure if I have ever told you how they met.

Dad had been overseas, two years of military service that took him to Northern Ireland, Egypt, Palestine, and Greece. While he was gone a new girl moved to town (Rayleigh) from London.

The Maul and Kemp families attended different churches, but one day in 1948 both David and Grace showed up at a young people’s prayer meeting. David sat close to the front; Grace was near the back. They didn’t meet, they didn’t even see one another, but dad heard her voice when she prayed…

I know. You don’t have to tell me how improbable this sounds. But after the meeting David Maul asked the leader, “Who was that girl who I heard praying so beautifully?”

I know. You don’t have to tell me how improbable this sounds. But after the meeting David Maul asked the leader, “Who was that girl who I heard praying so beautifully?”

So David did a little research and he found out where the bus stopped at the end of her street. She worked in London, rode the train home, then took a bus to the end of “The Chase.”

A couple of days later a young man took his dog – Gyp – for a walk and just happened to be passing the end of The Chase when a certain bus pulled in.

“Why hello!” David said. “You must be Grace Kemp. Aren’t you the girl whose voice I heard at the prayer meeting?”

That was 1948. Since that day, Grace and David have been together. They married in 1952. Today is November19, 2022. My mother’s anguish is 74 years deep. She may have a pacemaker that keeps her heart beating; but dad was the current that fueled her soul.

Fortunately, my mum’s deep and abiding love for God is as real and as present as both body and soul. But there is no getting around the pain, and my constant prayer is that she will know and feel God’s peace, the one that is beyond the limits of human understanding.

Jesus said: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

John 14:27