Before the age of 35, I had only attended three funerals. The first two` I was between 7 and 10 years old, with the third funeral taking place when I was around 17. Two were for my grandfathers of which I had no close connection with, the other for my mom’s best friend who battled long and hard with cancer, leaving behind her husband and two small children. It was sad to see my mom and so many others sad, and that was the extent of what I knew of grief from death.
Throughout my young adult life, the idea of losing a loved one permanently this side of heaven haunted me like a night terror as I saw countless people in my life lose grandparents that they loved dearly, have multiple miscarriages, and have unexpected last phone calls that left them wondering “did I tell them that I loved them?”. Even more of my peers were losing loved ones from illnesses that eventually would end in death, but the last breath was only known by God until that last breath was taken.
You see, grief doesn’t just happen as a result of a physical death. Every human grief is the result of an ending. In his book “God Will Make a Way: What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do”, Dr. Henry Cloud wrote:
“Grief is accepting the reality of what is. That is grief’s job and purpose-to allow us to come to terms with the way things really are, so that we can move on. Grief is a gift of God. Without it, we would all be condemned to a life of continually denying reality, arguing or protesting against reality, and never growing from the realities we experience.”
This quote beautifully covers every kind of human grief. physical death, the relational death of divorce or estranged family member, the employee who lost their job without warning, the teacher who has enriched little lives in her classroom for 40 years and is forced to retire because of a dementia diagnosis; Grief is common and woven into the fabric of humanity, which sometimes goes unnoticed, while other times it seems to stick out like a giant fever blister on the upper lip of a super model; out of place and undesirable to look at.
Dr. Cloud is absolutely right by describing grief as a gift from God, but how do we look at grief as good when the dominating feeling is pain?
I have been working on influencer content for a different ministry and most recently have been working on a video response discussing the truth that God is good. “Good” is an adjective that our world has placed a moral value on.
- When a dog rolls over, his owner says “Good dog!”
- When you ask someone “How are you?” and they respond, “I’m good!”.
- The man who seeks to feed the hungry is a good man, but the man who seeks to exploit them is bad.
As Christians it should be no surprise to us that adjectives like “good” are not as trite and uncomplicated as the world makes them out to be. Jesus calls His children to be “In the world, but not of it” (John 17:15), which directly correlates to the fact that for a Christian, “good” can also mean grief and hardship and sometimes even pure evil, which is impossible to experience without the work of the Holy Spirit.
At its heart pain is good, because it tells the body that something is wrong and needs to be addressed, but few will say that pain is good when compared to a hot stone massage. Psalm 84:11 says:
“For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
It wasn’t until going through significant hardships as an adult that I realized that “no good thing does he withhold” is not always referring to a better paying job or a nap for a tired mother that seems so out of reach. Rather, it is referring to the suffering and pain that we will endure at some point on our Christian walk. If Jesus suffered and died an agonizing death, then why should we believe the lie that we are exempt from our own God allowed brand of hard providence?
This is the beginning of a rich and prayerfully Holy Spirit inspired collection of writing dedicated to exploring grief.
Lesson number one: Grief and God are most definitely good.
