God is Love, even in the Graveyard.

I came across this gravestone on my way to preach at Harrop on Sunday. It's located within the grounds of Rathmell Parish Church. It is a measure of the deceased relatives' faith that they could invoke their Creator's love at a time of sorrow and grief. We tend to associate love with times of joy, and with times of feeling blessed. But these people acknowledged and experienced God's love through pain. They knew that His love was still there even when their beloved was not. They knew that it is a constant, never varying, even when we lose that which is precious. God's compassion and loving-kindness are not like their paler, shabbier human equivalents, for God IS love.