Grief and the church community - Amanda Garlato’s Story

Webmaster | 1 August 2006

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My husband Marco had been ministering in the parish of St Luke’s Miranda for nine years when he died suddenly from a heart attack in the early hours of Monday, 29 November 1999. He was aged 44, I was 42 and our three children were in their middle teenage years.

In the initial shock of Marco’s death I couldn’t think what the rest of my life could possibly look like. It all seemed so unreal, so overwhelming, and so I kept going back to Psalm 121 to be reminded again and again that my help was to come from the Lord… that he would be my keeper…that he would keep my life…forevermore.

I have never faced a greater test to my faith. For the first couple of years I used to think of and describe the effect of Marco’s death like this: If we really believe that in marriage the two become one, then when Marco died half of my body got ripped away and I was daily living with that real pain. As my broken heart has healed, I think more now that, as Marco and I were married for nearly 20 years, during that time part of Marco was growing in me, and now part of Marco’s love and influence still live on in me as I continue to live my life, love and support the children and engage in work and in ministry. That’s not to say that the healing scar is not still painful when it gets bumped.

We received many, many sympathy cards and letters in the days and weeks that followed Marco’s death. But one card was very different and not easily forgotten. It had some verses from the Bible handwritten in it. The verses have stuck with me – they were not an instant comfort, but something to work with – always.

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exalt in the God of my salvation. God the Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights” (Habakkuk 3:17-19).

How could I … how would I … continue to rejoice in the Lord and exalt in the God of my salvation and allow him to lead me? What were some of the ‘thoughs’ going to be in my life now? Over the years I have been working through some of the ‘thoughs’. God continues to be faithful and gracious in giving me a great sense of contentment and confidence in his goodness to me so that I can rejoice in the Lord and exalt in the God of my salvation.

And for the children, all of whom are now over 21, I believe the Lord has been very gracious and faithful to them in their grief and enabled them to rejoice in him and allow him to be their strength. They each profess a personal faith in Jesus and attend church and a Bible study group and are involved in youth leadership at St Luke’s, Miranda.

People say I have changed over these last seven years, and I think I probably have. I have come to see things differently, to think about things differently, often from a deeper spiritual perspective…You cannot see the one you love, leave you in front of your eyes and move into eternity with God, and not be changed by the God whom we cannot ignore and whom we must take very seriously.

If this is the purpose of our lives – to know God and to enjoy him forever – then that is what Marco is doing now, and, when Jesus returns to call me home, we will be with the Lord forever, together with all who have fallen asleep in the Lord. In looking back over the past almost seven years I want to give thanks and praise to God for his personal support through his Holy Spirit and through his Word, and through his saints: close family and friends and the many who have prayed for us and supported us. I am amazed and humbled when I meet people, some of whom I hardly know, who say that they continue to pray for our family regularly. In our lives this is our testimony: that our God is an ever-loving and faithful God – in the good times and in the hard times. To God be the glory.

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