was a beautiful baby girl born with Edwards’ syndrome. She lived for fourteen months and brought lots of joy to those who had the privilege of meeting her. As hospital chaplain, I encountered Emma and her parents a lot and helped them plan her funeral service:
‘I will never forget you, . . . I have written your name on the palms of my hands.’ (Isaiah 49:15–16, GNB)
We are here today to share with Emma’s mum and dad in their great loss. We’re here, not to tell them that everything will be OK. For how can it ever be?
But we are here just to be with them and with their families at this time when nothing makes any sense, when there are no explanations, no answers. Let us pray.
God of love, love is your gift to us; love to give, to receive, to share.
Love can bring the deepest joy but also the keenest suffering.
We suffer today because we loved so much, because of the joy brought to us by Emma’s brief presence. We can’t even pretend to understand
But we pray that you understand us, you, who knew and felt the pain of others, surround us with yet more of that love you give.
And help us, even in our darkness, to give thanks for the love which Emma awakened in us.
May we know that, as she brought so much to our lives, she remains your child forever.
Today, may we feel her presence and yours and be assured that that love can never be taken from us.
Be with us now as we pay these last offices of love in this place, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Reading
We read an excerpt from Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne – a time when the friends were struggling to say goodbye.
Committal
God gives life, and God takes it away.
And the taking away is so terribly painful, because what he gives is so very good.
Emma, you are one of God’s children, held forever in love.
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord be kind and gracious to you.
May the Lord smile upon you and give you peace.
Sleep in the sleep of all calm. Sleep in the sleep of all loves.
Sleep, beloved Emma, in the God of life.
Let us pray.
God of life, we thank you that we do not belong only to ourselves but to one another.
Our lives are woven together in care, in tenderness, in hope to a pattern we do not yet understand.
Sorrow and sadness can bind us closer still as we discover a shared strength,
a deeper, more mysterious love.
In and through their shared and bitter grief, may Emma’s parents come to feel this to be true.
May they be sure that Emma’s life continues to be woven into theirs
and that all is held together by love.
May they know what good and loving parents they are and how much they have given to Emma.
Help them to comfort one another, not to withdraw into themselves,
but to talk often and to care for one another.
We pray too for their families.
Give them comfort, your courage and your strength through all that lies ahead.
Thank you for all the support they have known already,
from each other, from neighbours, from friends.
Help all of us here to support one another and to come to know, in time,
the depth of your support, the breadth of your loving arms around us.
We ask this in the name of Christ who died for us. Amen.
Jesus said: Peace I give to you, peace such as the world cannot give.
Set your troubled hearts at rest and banish your fears.
Christ’s peace be with us as we go on our way this day and forever. Amen.
Resting Place
REV. GILLEAN MACLEAN
This poem was written after the scattering of ashes on Iona of a member of my congregation who had come to faith on that island. I use poetry often in worship – my own and others’. I think that, as we try to express what is essentially mystery, often it is only in poetry that we can come close to an understanding. Some of the best poetry I have read is by women. The mistress of the love poem, after all, is surely Christina Rossetti. She wrote about love, human love, but also about divine love and how the two are inextricably linked.
‘Resting Place’
Here,
in this place
to dance with seagulls
over white-tipped waves,
to sing with the curlew
the corncrake and the skylark
to swim with the seals
through forests of swaying kelp.
Freed,
at the last
from the restrictions of the earth
the vagaries of time
the restraints of the years.
One with tides and seasons
an eternal jewelled droplet
part of the endless breath of God.
And yet,
not resting at all
ever moving, changing, creating.
Finished with life.
Alive to eternity.
Loss, Love and Growth
REV. ALISON HUTCHISON
This was used in small church-group and hospital settings. It allows the acknowledging and addressing of the pain of various kinds of loss and the hope of growth through them, with God’s help.
Loss
Leader
It has been said that life begins in loss – in the very act of birth, we lose the comfort and security of our mother’s womb and are forced out to face a strange and unfamiliar world. The act of birth is inseparable from the pain of letting go. That experience of loss and new birth continues life-long.
When we think of loss, we tend to think of the aching grief of losing a loved one in death. However, loss plays a larger part in our lives. We leave places and people, and are left by them. We may lose opportunities or our dreams, our hopes. There are times we lose our identities, or the person we long to be. We may lose our health suddenly or slowly as we age. We may know the loss and grief of being separated from each other by distance or disagreement.
Let us acknowledge our losses and the grief they bring . . .
Reflective prayer
To be spoken by one or more people. Explain that silence will be used.
Voice 1
Living, loving God, we bring to you now any loss, any grief, large or small, deserved or undeserved, expected or unexpected. (pause)
Voice 2
We