Have you ever been there? I have, and it was not pleasant.

Alone with my loss, my heart ached unbearably. My world, I thought, had collapsed. The moment was dark, and the future looked exceedingly dim. The pain I felt seemed unbearable. Have you heard the old expression, “The bottom dropped out?” At the moment, that’s how I felt.

Then, I saw some words of Rosamunde Pilcher, a British romance novelist that, at the moment, did not help one bit; they just rubbed salt in my wounds: “Beyond the pain, life continues to be sweet.” When I saw those words, my first thought was: What does that woman know about life? Has she ever experienced real pain? Yes, I thought, life will go on, but will it ever be “sweet” again?

Then, after a moment, I realized that I had jumped to a conclusion and formed an opinion before I had finished Mrs. Pilcher’s statement. I discovered that she went on to say, “The basics are still there: Beauty, food and friendship, reservoirs of love and understanding. Later, maybe not now, you are going to need others who will encourage you to make a new beginning. They will help you move on, to cherish happy memories and confront the painful ones with more than bitterness and anger.”

What an eye opener that was! I realized that, in the darkest of moments and in the worst of times, all is not hopeless, for there is help beyond the pain. As Mrs. Pilcher so poignantly said, I do not need to fear. My basic needs are met, and in the darkest moments, I have what I need to make a new beginning. Good friends are with me to encourage and help me. In every situation I face, I can count on them, for they are loyal and true. For at least twenty-three hundred years, it has been proverbial that “there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” That, in any situation, is encouraging.