Grief

I think grief is often solely associated with the death of a person, but as I found out oh so clearly this past semester, that is not the case. Many things can unfortunately die. People, yes, but also the security of what you thought would be your future, your dreams, what you thought you knew, a relationship…yes, many things can die.

The challenge is how to grieve the loss of these things. It’s not a physical death, but these things are gone for good, so isn’t it kinda the same? I didn’t think so until recently. My older brother passed away when I was 13, and I think I was so focused on being able to see God’s goodness in it all that I didn’t let myself grieve and mourn the loss. I think I felt guilty, like I would be failing to trust God’s promise that he will work everything for good. So I learned to turn my emotions off and hold myself together and push through when things died. But that became too hard to do this time…

I had heard that the shortest verse in the Bible was “Jesus wept.” Just two words in John 11 were so profound. They showed Jesus could cry. But, one day I wanted to know the context of the verse. So I went to chapter 11 and read that when Jesus had saw that Lazarus was dead, “Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “see how much he loved him'” (John 11:35-36). That struck me – though Jesus was fully God, fully knew and believed and trusted that God had good plans, and fully knew his own power to resurrect, Jesus did not approach the situation with that. Rather, he allowed himself to grieve out of love, so much so that his love was evident to those around him. In understanding that, I realized that grieving and mourning the loss of someone or something (tangible or intangible) isn’t weakness or a lack of faith, it’s love. And doesn’t Jesus command us to love?

I believe there is to be a balance between mourning and hope. Though we mourn to display our love, we are to guard our hearts from the enemy’s lies that God’s promises don’t apply to us. That He has failed us and forgotten about us. That this is all too broken and shattered and dead for any new beautiful life to come from it.

We do this with Scripture. We attack the lies with truth, because lies don’t look so scary and believable when we take them out of their hidden places in the darkness and expose them in the light.

I came upon this passage in Romans 4 which brought me so much encouragement and faith when trusting God to make beauty from the ashes of death, and I share them with you now because they are just as true for you as they are for me.

“…the God who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exists. He (Adam) believed, hoping against hope, so that he became the father or many nations according to what had been spoken…He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body to be already dead (since he was about a hundred years old) and also the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver in unbelief at God’s promise but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God because he was fully convinced that was God promised, he was also able to do” (Romans 4:17-21).

Our God is Life himself (John 14:6). He is in the business of resurrecting dead things (John 11:25). And he is fully able to speak something into existence that does not currently exist. So yes, what you see may very well be death, but God can make beauty that is not currently present come to be. I urge you to hold that promise closely and remain fully convinced that God is able to fulfill his promises.