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M Surine

About M Surine

Posts by M Surine:

Cosmic abstract scene with layered gradients from a starry deep navy and black background to a sunrise burst of warm oranges and yellows, symbolizing eternal hope, divine healing, and God's love overcoming grief

How Can God’s Love Heal My Grief?

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What Does It Mean to Experience Deep Loss?

I know so many who are suffering in grief for lost loved ones. I’ve experienced loss as well, learning at the age of 10 what it meant to lose someone when my baby half-brother passed away from a heart defect he’d had since birth. Even though I was young, I had often babysat him. I knew how to comfort him, how to protect the back of his head, how to warm up his milk, and how to give him his medicine at the right times. I sang songs to him and played with him and loved him deeply.

When my step-mom called our house that day, I answered the phone. She could not think to ask for an adult, and said in all her brokenness, “Misty, Steven is dead.” I’ll never forget those words or the sound of her voice. That was my first introduction to painful loss through death, but it was not the last.

What Is the Relationship Between Love and Grief?

Where love had once filled my heart, grief overtook that space. This is why I believe that the opposite of love is not hate—it is grief. Where love fills, grief leaves empty. Where love consoles, grief torments. Where love heals, grief leaves brokenness. The opposite of love is grief, and no amount of time seems to remove that hurt. I can still think back on those moments of loss, and it will hit me with the same force as if it just happened yesterday.

Why? If time is meant to heal all things, why does grief feel like the exception?

Because love… is the opposite… of grief.

How Does God’s Eternal Love Provide Healing?

Love is the most divine manifestation of God himself, and God is eternal. In that way, love is also timeless. Love is the only force that defies every known law of physics. It is able to expand and endure across all time and distance without being lost or diminished.

When we love, we see the reflection of God in this world. We get a blessed but diluted, earthly glimpse of the awesome, infinite power of God’s love. We hold it for a time, but when it is taken away, we are left with the memory of that power, and we feel to the depths of our soul the gaping hole that remains. There is a never-ending longing in our hearts, crying out to God for the connection we had with Him that has been removed through the loss of that person. The depth of our sorrow is the exact depth of our love—and so it is beautiful. That we feel the loss so deeply means that we loved that intensely.

How Can I Invite God’s Healing Light Into My Heart?

There is no earthly consolation for such a loss. Many stay trapped in this place for the rest of their lives, wishing they could have that love back again. Truly friends, the only power strong enough to heal that hurt is God himself. In moments of grief, we should pray that God comes to place His own light into that empty space. We should recognize that the reflection we saw in others was a beautiful insight into what will be, and God has the ability to fulfill our hearts beyond our wildest understanding if we will only let Him.

Many will rebel at this idea because it feels like a betrayal to the person they loved. They may think that somehow they will forget their loved one if they let God move into that space in their heart. I believe that there is no better way to honor the ones we’ve lost. We were blessed for a time to hold God’s hand, look into His eyes, laugh with Him, travel the Earth with Him, confide in Him, and learn from Him—through the lives of those we’ve loved. You cannot forget those things. The person you loved is not lost in this process of transformation—they are glorified. They are lifted up to the powerful and proper role in your life that they were meant to fulfill… to show you the face of God!

How Can I Find Hope and Peace Amid Grief?

Someday, we will know and experience God’s eternal realm of love without loss, where grief is no longer the price for having loved.

I pray for everyone who struggles with grief. I pray that you will recognize the power of God that was present in that relationship. I pray that you can find peace in knowing that God was there, revealed to you through their lives, and that God is still there, alive in yours.

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13 New Living Translation

M Surine
pray for squirrels

Pray for Squirrels

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This morning I was brainstorming, thinking about our Church For All fundraiser. I don’t know about you, but looking at that number we’re aiming for feels more than a little daunting.

In my head was one thought: “Who could we possibly reach out to who can make a dent in that much money?” In that moment I recalled a nearly forgotten childhood memory of my Grandmother and my six-year-old self laughing and singing a song called Mississippi Squirrel Revival by Ray Stevens.

The song played in my head: “Seven deacons and the pastor got saved, and $25,000 was raised and FIFTY volunteered for missions in the Congo on the spot.”

I started laughing again at this song, to which I still know every word, and thought, “Maybe we need to pray for squirrels.”

When I was little, that song was just about the funniest thing I’d ever heard, and I made my Grandma replay it over and over, even though I didn’t understand half of what it said. The idea of a kid putting a squirrel into a shoebox and having it escape during Sunday service seemed like a great time to me.

This possibly anointed squirrel ran around the room, causing a panic and inciting people to leap over pews shouting “Hallelujah!”, feeling that the Holy Spirit was among them. If the Spirit wasn’t with them at the beginning of that service, it was there by the end as they fervently sought the Lord. Those people were in a “fight for survival… that broke out in revival!”

Being an adult now, I went over the lyrics with a new eye. Is this an appropriate song for a follower of Christ? What is it really about?

The idea of God using “a half-crazed, Mississippi squirrel” to bring people back to Christ drove it home for me: God will go to great lengths to get our attention. How many times before has God wanted me to pay attention while I went about my busy life, not focused enough on Him to listen… until He did something to REALLY get my attention?

He didn’t send any squirrels my way, but there have been moments where God demanded I take notice, sometimes in very comical ways. There were definitely instances where it felt like He bonked me on the head and said, “Hey, over here kiddo.”

What would it take to get our attention these days and get us moving with the kind of fervor that I was drawn to as a child? What would it take for our local businesses to take notice? What would compel us to leap over pews and shout “Hallelujah!”?

A squirrel might do the trick, but we have a lot of work to do. An army of squirrels, perhaps? If my squirrel friend was a metaphor of how God moves in this world to fulfill His plans, then maybe He could use US in the same way.

What if we were all so enthusiastic about God’s plan that we spoke to every business we walked into from here to Buffalo and told them about our project? What if these businesses heard about it from so many different people that they wanted to be a part of it?

What if God is asking all of us to get out there and stir hearts into action? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating… um… squirrel song behavior… maybe we just consider ourselves messengers for a plan that God has put on our hearts.

With that kind of faith, maybe we could leap obstacles as if they were church pews and shout “Hallelujah!” as we surpassed our goal by miles.

I think if my Grandma was still with us, she would smile, knowing that I carry this memory after nearly 40 years, and she’d be proud to know that it has inspired me to think differently about what we’re trying to do. That memory, one wrapped in love, is a reflection of an even broader love that we can all access through the Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately, our new church home cannot be accessed that easily. Tonight, I pray that the Holy Spirit might move in our church and in our communities in such a powerful way that they write silly songs about us that children can laugh at someday.

They would call us crazy… until they realized we had answered our own question. Who DO we know who can make a dent in our goals?

Our Father can do it. Jesus can do it. The Holy Spirit can do it.

Hallelujah! Pray for squirrels.

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