I wept bitterly when my sister passed away from a brain aneurysm in her late thirties. Our shared story as a pigeon pair was now mine alone—this side of heaven. When my wife of 20 years succumbed to cancer’s clutches at the age of 47, I would find myself staring at the wall in my room. Perhaps I was staring beyond it, seeking another dimension. In my grieving I felt as though I was living someone else’s life. The script did not have me as an only child, a widowed father.
Grieving at Your Own Pace
I struggled to read anything. C. S. Lewis’ experience of grieving his wife was so different from mine, as were my children’s, parents’, brother-in-law’s and other family and friends. I pondered heaven. Both now, and the new heavens and the new earth (Revelation 21:1). What is Aslan’s Country like? What is the nature of the glorified life?
As I looked at my wife’s scarves, creams, cosmetics, and necklaces, which lay where she’d last placed them, I recalled a phrase my childhood pastor would use: “The hearse doesn’t have a trailer.” I tentatively turned to the Psalms. Randy Alcorn’s book on heaven was, for me, insightful, and helpful. Cautious steps.
Grief tends to cause frail humans to run to or from God.
My goal was to do the next right thing for my children. People told me to be kind to myself. But I didn’t really know what that meant. I understood the words and the concept. But what does “being kind to yourself” look like when it feels as if you have been hit by a bus? Family, friends, colleagues, pastors, and the church were kind. COVID-19 quarantines compounded new experiences such as profound loneliness. The ebbs and flows of joys and losses continued during the ensuing days, weeks, and months.
I thought of Moses, who presided over funerals for a generation of people in the desert. So much grieving.
Assurance in the Face of Death
I don’t understand how those without faith process death. The light of the gospel has been a beacon in my life since my sister and wife entered glory. Steady. True. Not easy, but reassuringly constant.
The gospel has been a beacon in my life since my sister and wife entered glory. Steady. True. Not easy.
In Charles Spurgeon’s sermon on Lamentations 3:21, delivered on 15 October 1865, he said, “At the south of Africa the sea was generally so stormy that when the frail boats of the Portuguese went sailing south, they named it the Cape of Storms. But after that cape had been well-rounded by bolder navigators, they named it the Cape of Good Hope. In your experience, you had many Cape of Storms, but you have weathered them all, and now, let them be a Cape of Good Hope to you.” Perhaps knowing that another pilgrim has and is navigating these deep, tumultuous waters can lighten your burden. Perhaps only by a few grams. But that is something.
Have you experienced significant loss? Grief tends to cause frail humans to run to or from God. Spurgeon wrote elsewhere, “I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.” He wasn’t an ivory tower preacher. He knew suffering.
Sometimes victory is just being pointed in the correct direction, with our compass pointed towards the Son. When many were deserting Jesus, he asked if Peter would join them. To his credit, and for our edification, Peter replied, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68).
Grieving with Hope
Don’t lose heart. Breathe. And look to Jesus.
Where else can we find hope in this life and for eternity? Only in the One who wept with Mary and Martha (John 11:33-36). Not tears of despair. They were sobs of grief at the havoc caused by sin, Satan, and death. Later, sorrow engulfed Jesus in a garden (Luke 22:3-38). Again, not weeping because of hopelessness. Tears flowed when contemplating the agony of being separated from the Father for the first time in all eternity. He faced God’s wrath in the place of sinful humanity. As a substitute. The innocent dying for the guilty. He made himself nothing, entering our time-space continuum to suffer and grieve so that that self-same pain and sorrow could, in due time, be put away.
Don’t lose heart. Breathe. Breathe again. And look to Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).
