But we do not want you to be
uninformed, brethren, about those
who are asleep, so that you will not
grieve as do the rest who have no
hope.
1 Thessalonians 4:13 (NASB)
Before I begin I would like to give
testimony to the marvelous timing of
God. It was several months ago, after I
had spoken with a young woman in our
congregation who was deeply grieving
the loss of her mother that I thought my
next sermon would be for her. I have
spoken of grief several times before but
never in our congregation as the entire
subject of a talk.
My last sermon, however, came during the
crisis between Israel and Gaza. I felt to
speak on God`s love for Israel.
But I still felt in my heart that my next one
would be about grieving in hope. I could not
have imagined that only a few days before I
would share this already planned message
that I would walk through one of the greatest
losses of my life in the death of my precious
mother-in-law, my second best friend in the
universe.
As I have revisited these timeless truths
which God has shown me over a span of
many years, I have found that they are as
lifegiving today as they were the day they
were first given to me.
It is my prayer that you will find comfort as I
share with you what God has imparted to my
soul which has brought me so much comfort
throughout my life but especially in the last
two weeks.
In my personal experience
with the church universal, I
have found that there some
topics that rarely or never get
spoken on from the pulpit
even though they are central
to living our lives well.
I have never heard a full sermon
on grief except the ones I have
preached. I can say, however, I
have heard more references to
grieving here in this church than
anywhere else. A while back
Martin shared about the comfort
God had given him about his
grandmother‟s death.
I don‟t know if you have noticed but
he has shared many very
vulnerable aspects of his life with
us. So has Howard. So has Harvey.
So has Miriam. So have other
leaders in our congregation. There
is something about this we need to
understand. It is not the norm for
leaders to do this.
Unfortunately it is very rare to find
leaders who share not only their
strengths but also their vulnerability.
One of the main reasons I know I
can trust the leadership of our
church is that they do share their
struggles, weaknesses, failures and
grief openly with us.
Why does that so impress me?
Because it is the image of Jesus in
their lives.
Listen to what Isaiah said about him
hundreds of years before he
“humbled himself” and became a
human.
Who has believed our message? And to whom has
the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2
For He grew
up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root
out of parched ground; He has no stately form or
majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor
appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
3
He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one
from whom men hide their face He was despised,
and we did not esteem Him.
4
Surely our griefs He
Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; . . . .
Isaiah 53:1-4 (NASB)
But He was pierced through for our
transgressions, He was crushed for our
iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell
upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.
6
All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of
us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has
caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.
Isaiah 53:5-6 (NASB)
As I read this amazing prophetic picture
of Jesus, I am struck with the emphasis
on his vulnerability.
He was, “A man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief…”
What a gift Isaiah proclaims came to us
through Jesus in saying, “Surely our
griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows
He carried”
Our saviour went through
terrible grief for us. Yet we speak
so little about it. The lack of time
given the subject in the pulpit
tells us it is not a popular theme.
Why not?
I believe one reason is
that even hearing the word
grief stirs up memories
and emotions that we all
find difficult at best,
unbearable at worst.
Whether it is the loss of a
person we loved through
death or the loss of
someone we cherished
while they still live, all loss
in human relationship puts
us into a state of grief.
Grief can be experienced
through the loss of
anything, a job, a pet, a
material thing, an
opportunity. . . .
The Bible says there are two
kinds of grief. We grieve in hope
or we grieve in hopelessness.
When we grieve in hope the fruit
of our grief ultimately brings joy
out of even unbearable pain.
Hopeless grief always leaves
a mark on our soul. Though
others may not see it, grief in
a heart that does not have
hope eats away inside of us
like acid. We are never far
from its power to rob, kill and
destroy.
For those who grieve in hope, the
depth of the grief may be the same
or even greater than those who
grieve hopelessly.
It is not the depth or the pain of our
grief that determines it‟s effect in
our lives. It is the hope through
which we experience it.
But we do not want you to be
uninformed, brethren, about those
who are asleep, so that you will not
grieve as do the rest who have no
hope.
1 Thessalonians 4:13 (NASB)
Even as I am saying these things many
of us are remembering losses that we
may still feel helpless to face, much
less to resolve.
As pastors we often find ourselves
unable to face or resolve our own grief.
How can we be expected to lead our
people into a resolution we ourselves
cannot find? So we go silent.
Today I know very well that I will be
touching areas in some of your lives
that may awaken feelings you may want
to let slumber.
I would ask you to give me an
opportunity, as one who has walked
through this valley of the shadow of
death as you have, to share some of
what God has done to help me come
out alive.
None of us will escape life
without pain. And the result of
pain will be grief. In our first
passage Paul did not say we
would not grieve. He said we
should not grieve like those who
have no hope.
God‟s way
in Grief
Our failure to know, understand and follow
God‟s way in the process of grief has left
many of us alone and alienated even from
God.
My people perish from a lack of knowledge.
Hosea 4: 6 (KJV)
But God does not desire us to perish in
grief. Far from it. God wants us to find His
power to not only comfort us in our grief but
to redeem it fully.
So let‟s begin our look a God‟s way
in grief by looking at the
characteristics of hopeless grief.
One primary mental and emotional
result from unresolved grief is the
feeling of almost infinite aloneness.
Out of that feeling grows many
others.
The heart knows its own bitterness, And
a stranger does not share its joy.
Proverbs 14:10 (NASB)
The word bitterness here is a
description of three results of hopeless
grief. The Hebrew word is ת ּ
ר ָ מ marat.
The root ּ
ר ָ מ MAR means
bitterness, suffering, or affliction.
Hopeless grief produces all three in
our lives.
Of these three, I have
found that the clearest
expression of hopeless
grieving is bitterness.
I have seen that when we feel, helpless,
abandoned, betrayed or alone we can
let our hope be destroyed and we will
feel bitter.
Hope deferred makes the heart
sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree
of life.
Proverbs 13:12 (NASB)
King David‟s grandmother three
generations removed was named
Naomi. Because of a terrible
drought Naomi had to leave Israel
her homeland to go to Moab just to
keep from starving. In Moab she
lost, in a slow progression of death,
first her husband, then one son and
finally her last son.
Anyone understanding the middle East
at that time knows that when she lost
her male relatives she also lost
everything they owned. Women did not
inherit property. All she had left were
her clothes and two daughters-in-law.
Since she could no longer support
herself in Moab she went back to Israel
with her son‟s wives. On the way there
even one of the daughters-in-law left
her.
Here is the story after she arrived to her home
town.
On their arrival there, the whole town was excited
about them, and the women asked: “Can this be
Naomi?”
20
But she said to them, “Do not call me
Naomi [„Sweet‟]. Call me Mara [„Bitter‟], for the
Almighty has made my life very bitter.
21
I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back
empty. Why should you call me „Sweet,‟ since the
LORD has brought me to trial, and the Almighty has
pronounced evil sentence on me.”
Ruth 1:19-21 (NABRE)
Naomi wanted to be called Mara, the
same Hebrew word we discussed
earlier - “Bitter.”
She wanted to be called this because in
her mind she was left alone and in
financial ruin.
“
I went away full, but the LORD has
brought me back empty.”
She felt God had not only left her
without help, but that He was the
ultimate cause of her misery.
Why should you call me „Sweet,‟ since
the LORD has brought me to trial, and
the Almighty has pronounced evil
sentence on me.”
I do not want to trivialize this. Her
tragic story of loss happened to a
real woman. It has been repeated
millions of times throughout history.
It has happened in a lesser or
greater way in all our lives. We
cannot go through life without
experiencing it to some degree.
“Sweet” Naomi, in the midst of her
inconsolable grief lost hope as she felt
herself to be completely alone and
forsaken even by God.
As a result of her hopeless grief she
became bitter.
Her chosen identity became Mara –
“Bitter.”
This is what the enemy of God and
our souls wants to do to everyone.
He wants us to believe that we are
alone. He wants us to feel that no
one is there for us in this horrible
place. He wants to turn a sweet
heart bitter which will not only
poison us but everyone else we
touch.
Some of you today know exactly
what she felt. In the depth of your
heart, perhaps in a very secret
place where no one knows but you,
you have lost hope. You know that
the pain is still there but it has been
covered in an armor of bitterness so
thick that nothing can penetrate it.
At the same time you know that the
armor you put on to protect yourself
from further pain has become a
prison. It binds you. It does not
allow for you to express the love
you really feel for others. It does not
let you love again. And it continually
reinforces the thought you are
hopeless, forsaken and most of all,
alone.
Having lived in that same prison for
so many years I want to call you
forth from it today. Like Jesus called
forth his friend Lazarus, I want to
call you forth from the prison of
hopelessness and the tomb of
bitterness.
I am calling you today to no longer
grieve hopelessly but to grieve in
hope.
That is when the pain will find
resolution and the armor of
bitterness will fall off.
The first principle of grieving in hope
is to know that you are not alone.
You are
Never Alone
Naomi felt herself to be completely
alone but she was not.
There was one person who
remained faithfully there throughout
the darkest moments of her journey
through the shadowlands. It was a
young woman named Ruth, her
daughter-in-law.
Listen to Ruth‟s declaration she
made to Naomi but hear it as God
speaking to you:
But Ruth said, “Do not press me to go back
and abandon you!
Wherever you go I will go,
wherever you lodge I will lodge.
Your people shall be my people
and your God, my God.
17
Where you die I will die,
and there be buried.
May the LORD do thus to me, and more, if
even death separates me from you!”
Ruth 1:16-17 (NABRE)
Ruth is a picture of God to us in the
midst of grief. Her commitment to
be with Naomi no matter what can
give us great comfort in the midst of
our grief if we will let it.
God is even more committed to be
with us through our times of pain
and sorrow than Ruth was to
Naomi.
In the midst of the most difficult moments of
our lives we must remember that Jesus has
said he will be there with and for us.
He Himself has said, “I WILL
NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I
EVER FORSAKE YOU,”
Hebrews 13:5 (NASB)
I have found that many people
misunderstand the nature of grief as a
Christian. The wrongly think they are to
simply “put on a happy face” since Jesus has
overcome the grave. Many clichés are
passed out in our attempt to comfort others
and in our own discomfort with emotions of
sadness. Underneath many of those clichés
are truths but they have come to mean
something different than they first expressed.
To say, “Jesus is with us” can be the cliché of
clichés if we are not careful.
The truth that it expresses, however, is one
of the most powerful ways that we will find
our grief resolved in a positive and healthy
way.
That truth is not so
difficult for us to
understand.
This is my little
granddaughter
Esmerelda. I have
the wonderful privilege of caring for her.
Anyone who has cared for a child knows that
sometimes no matter what you do they are
inconsolable. They cry for what seems to be
no reason. I find that Ezzie does this most at
bed time.
But I have found one
thing helps her in her
sorrow. After I do
everything possible
to comfort her, I will
lay beside her bed
and put my hand into her crib and hold her
hand. Soon she quiets and soon she falls
asleep. It is not that I have to change her
circumstances to comfort her. What she
really wants to feel is that I am with her.
Trusting God
in our Grief
One thought that can keep the
knowledge that God is with us
from giving us the comfort it
should is that we believe God is
the cause of our pain.
C. S. Lewis in his
time of grief over the
death of his beloved
Joy found himself
wrestling with this
thought. On his first
return to his faculty
dinner after she died
the conversation
went like this:
C.S. - “I wasn't going to come, but then I thought I
would.”
Christopher, “Life must go on.”
C.S. “I don't know that it must, but it certainly does.”
Christopher, “I'm sorry, Jack.”
C.S. “Thank you, Christopher.”
Christopher, “We're all deeply sorry.”
C.S. “Thank you.”
Christopher, “Anything I can do?”
C.S. - “Yes, just don't tell me it's all for the best,
that's all.
His pastor - “Only God knows why these things
have to happen, Jack.”
C.S. “God knows, but does God care? –
Christopher, “Of course. We see so little
here. We're not the creator. We're the
creatures, aren't we?”
C.S. “We're the rats in the cosmic laboratory.
I've no doubt the experiment is for our own
good, but... it still makes God the
vivisectionist, doesn't it? It won't do. It's this
bloody awful mess, and that's all there is to
it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GJdtzohP3c
It seems hard to imagine that such
an amazing Christian like C.S.
Lewis could have had such
thoughts, much less have
expressed them openly. But he was
doing what we have to do to resolve
grief properly. He was being honest.
Being honest is not the same as speaking the truth.
The truth is God deeply cares.
He is not the one who brought death on humanity
While His sovereignty will triumph over death one
day it still has its sting today.
It is not, nor has ever been his will. He did not want
the first person on earth to die. Nor will he want the
last person on earth to die.
But hopeless grief can tell us that God is the cause
of our pain and we can believe it.
When it does we must be honest but we must also
be willing to believe what God says about himself.
Jesus is God in a human body. What he did is what
the Father does. The way he responded was the
way the Father responds. We must let that truth go
deep into our hearts lest we ever think that God the
Father is, as Lewis felt, some aloof “vivisectionist”
who has no heart for us.
A story of Jesus raising a dead man to life gives us
a glimpse into what the Father‟s heart is for us in
our grief.
Jesus was special friends with two sisters and a
brother. The sisters were Mary and Martha. The
brother was Lazarus. Jesus was in the northern
part of Israel when messengers came to call him to
come quickly because Lazarus was very ill. It is so
puzzling that instead of coming right away, he
stayed where he was for a few more days. Finally
he told his followers he was going to go to Lazarus
and wake him up from sleep. They thought it was
strange that he would go so far just to wake him
up. He then told them Lazarus was dead. And then
he said an almost heartless sounding thing. He
said he was glad he was not there to heal him.
While I am sure many people
interpret this part of the story in
a different way, I believe it
shows Jesus has a greater plan
in our lives than fixing our
situation. In this, God may seem
heartless. He does not always
correct that impression.
C.S. Lewis, for a time in his grief, had
his heart revealed as to what he really
thought God was like. And God did not
challenge those thoughts by making
everything right.
He sometimes does let our own
thoughts remain without a response, or
one we might think heartless, to show
us our own lack of trust in him.
When we face these moments of
our deepest loss we find out what
we really believe. And Jesus does
not hinder us from finding that out
by false comfort. I believe this is a
severe mercy.
Because of our tendency to place
our hope in circumstances, he may
give no answer to our questions
except to trust him.
Jesus knows that the only place of sure
hope we have is to trust in him alone.
John 11:14 So Jesus then said to
them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and
I am glad for your sakes that I was
not there, so that you may
believe; . . . ."
Remember the last time I preached? I
spoke of how Jesus purposefully acted
in a way toward a woman whose child
was dying that seemed absolutely cruel.
But what happened was the woman
walked right through her pride and right
into true faith. In the end her child was
healed and she had one of the greatest
commendations of faith Jesus gave any
one. “Oh woman, great is your faith.”
In the process of him tearing
our hearts away from trusting
circumstances to trusting him,
we must believe that this
severe mercy comes from a
heart of infinite compassion.
Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus
was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary
stayed at the house. 21 Martha then said to
Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my
brother would not have died. 22 "Even now I
know that whatever You ask of God, God will
give You.“ 23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother
will rise again.“ 24 Martha said to Him, "I
know that he will rise again in the
resurrection on the last day.“
John 11:19-24
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the
life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,
26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will
never die. Do you believe this?“ 27 She said to
Him, "Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the
Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into
the world.“ 28 When she had said this, she went
away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly,
"The Teacher is here and is calling for you.“ 29 And
when she heard it, she got up quickly and was
coming to Him. . . .
John 11:25-30
when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw
Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him,
"Lord, if You had been here, my brother
would not have died.“ 33 When Jesus
therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews
who came with her also weeping, He was
deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, 34
and said, "Where have you laid him?" They
said to Him, "Lord, come and see.“ 35
Jesus wept.
John 11: 31-35
.
Jesus wept.
In spite of the questioning and the appearance
of unconcern, Jesus deeply loved Martha,
Mary and Lazarus. But they did not know it.
They thought that had he come to them in
their crisis he would have healed their sick
brother and he would have lived.
As if to confirm their lack of trust in him, Jesus
purposefully did not come not there physically
and Lazarus did die.
What was Jesus doing?
He was leading them through the valley of
the shadow of death so that they would
come to fear no evil.
Even though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are
with me; Your rod and Your staff, they
comfort me.
Psalm 23:4 (NASB)
Though he knew full well that in only a few
moments their sorrow would be turned to
absolute stunning joy when his Father would
hear his voice and his deeply loved friend
would walk out of the grave.
Still, he honored Mary and Martha‟s grief by
entering into it with them. He wept with them.
This is how we keep from making the
awesome truths about the resurrection and
the life to come from being empty clichés.
We, “Weep with those who weep.”
I think the greatest revelation for Mary and
Martha that day was not that Jesus could
raise the dead. I think the greatest revelation
was that he loved them so much that it drew
him into their grief.
Though their grief had hidden it, his heart
was always with them.
He wanted them to know without doubt his
presence in their lives was always there
even when his physical body was not.
We need not walk the valley of the shadow
of death alone. Jesus‟ tears reveal the heart
whose hand we can trust to lead us safely
through the darkest night.
God is not only with us in valley of the
shadow of death. He grieves with us. He not
only gives us permission to grieve, he joins
with us. He is touched with the feelings of
our vulnerability.
For we do not have a high priest who cannot
sympathize with our weaknesses, but One
who has been tempted in all things as we
are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:15 (NASB)
I have shared what I believe are the two
most important principles of grieving
with hope.
Jesus will always be with us no matter
how dark our lives become.
Jesus loves us, grieves with us and
comforts us with himself.
Today we partake in a vivid reminder of
these two truths. I have chosen for us to
take communion at this time in the
service, during the sermon, to
emphasize what Jesus did for us on the
cross. He gave his life to save us and
all those we love from death. No matter
what we may feel, what we do in this
remembrance meal tells us we are not
alone and we are loved immensely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfveawSAHJA
These two principles have comforted
and guided me through many days of
grief. They have helped me to grieve
with hope.
Building on these two foundational
truths I have found other important
truths and practical ways to apply them.
Give him
to me.
Not long after I became a Christian I visited an old
man in a rest home in Broken Arrow, a small village
just out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The old man‟s name
was Thomas Terry. He was my paternal
grandfather. His life story was one of continual
pain. He was a wood worker. His finest
craftsmanship was displayed in the violins he
made. In the years known as the “Dust Bowl” in
Oklahoma he could not sell his violins so he built
wooden oil dereks to pump the oil from the ground
where oil was first discovered in America. One
terrible day when he was working alone the derek
collapsed crushing one hand completely and
leaving his other hand with only two fingers.
Only a few weeks later, because of the loss
of his ability to provide for his family, his wife
and eight children deserted him. They went
to California along with thousands of other
“Okies.” He spent the rest of his life alone
with only an occasional visit from my father
and another son.
When I came to visit him my heart was
touched with such a love for him that I
decided to move to Tulsa and care for him as
best I could.
I did so for several years. During that time I
came to love him like I had never loved
anyone. This was one of the significant ways
that God began to build His love in me. Not
through teaching or doctrine but by
expressing his love through me.
Those years were so wonderful. I never
thought they would end. But one day as I
was preparing to go to Israel for the summer,
God asked me to do the hardest thing I had
ever done.
I had come to the nursing home to say
goodbye for two months. As I was
holding those beautiful hands that still
testified to the cost he paid to care for
his family, God said,
“Give him to me.”
I knew what he meant. And I did not
want to do it.
As I thought about what God was asking me
it was as if he said, “I have kept him until
now for you. All that he has suffered before
in his life brought him and you together for
these precious years. You led him to me but
now you must trust me to care for him when
you cannot. I will take care of him. Give him
to me.”
I knew God loved him even more than I did
and I also knew that he would be so much
happier with Jesus.
In that moment, which remains as an almost
eternal one, I said to God that He could have
my precious grand father. I put his hand into
Jesus‟. I said goodbye to grandpa forever.
Only a few weeks later on the very day that I
put my hands on the walls of Jerusalem
where I would meet the most important friend
in my life, my best friend, my wife Carie,
Jesus held my grandfather‟s hand as they
walked through the valley of the shadow of
death together.
I still grieve that parting. And it is right that I
do so. But I do not grieve without hope.
I know that Jesus was with my grandfather
always.
I know that Jesus loves him even more than I
do.
I know my love for him would never harm
him but always care for him. So I know the
same about Jesus since I know it was him
who put that love in my heart in the first
place.
The pain then is part of
the happiness now. That's
the deal.
Joy Davidman-Gresham, C.S. Lewis`s wife.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrXU3oZEqiA
The issue of pain is a mystery. Why would a
God who cares about us allow us to suffer?
Why would a God who is said to be all
powerful allow circumstances in our lives that
harm us not only in our bodies but leave us
devastated internally?
I do not intend to answer those questions
and frankly I do not have the answers even
in my own mind.
What I do have is what God has shared with
me in those times.
While it will not always be so, in the present
age joy and grief are inextricably linked.
When we love we will certainly one day
grieve. This mystery seems cruel if we do not
have hope in Jesus. But no matter how we
look at it, it is true. The more you love
someone the more you will hurt when they
are gone.
This linking of Joy and Suffering in relationship is
the principle of the cross.
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so
great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every
weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set
before us,
2
looking unto Jesus, the author and
finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set
before Him endured the cross, despising the
shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NKJV)
The deeper the bond in a relationship the
greater the sorrow will be in their loss.
I have found that if we try to stop the pain we
at the same time stop the joy.
I have seen many people when faced with a
deep loss make a commitment to never
allow their hearts to love in that way again.
That is the beginning of a life of continual
sorrow. It often leads to addiction. I know
that all to well.
During the earliest years of my life, my mom was
continually running away from my dad who in his
jealousy had become abusive to her. She would
put my younger brother and I in the back seat of
the car where we ate and slept for days until we
were far enough away that dad couldn‟t find us.
I‟ll never forget one of the last times we saw dad.
He had kidnapped us at gunpoint with the getaway
car parked just down the street. I felt such terror as
the car careened uncontrollably, tires screeching
and the passenger door swinging open. I fell
headlong onto the pavement and watched the rear
tire miss my face by inches. That event marked the
end of their marriage and a life of pain for us boys.
I think my deepest pain was not having a dad. The
pain of dad‟s departure was felt over and over in so
many different ways. I never knew when it would
rear its ugly head and taunt me with words like,
“You don‟t have a dad.” One summer I walked
several miles to an electronic exhibition at the fair
grounds. When I reached the entry gate I was
asked, “Where‟s your dad, Sonny?”
“I don‟t have one now.” I replied.
“Sorry, but you have to have a dad to get in.”
Eventually the rejection and anger turned into a
hard, cold, emotionless knot in the pit of my
stomach.
After I came to know Jesus I found great joy in my
life. But there still remained a part of me that felt
like it was locked up…. Frozen in time….. A place
of intense pain that I had simply sealed off.
Almost twenty years after my father left I was sitting
in a classroom on the YWAM base in Cambridge
Ontario. Carie and I were taking their Discipleship
Training Course. The speaker was talking about
the cross. As he spoke the Spector of my dad‟s
desertion loomed large in my mind. I asked a
question that day I had never asked before. I said
to Jesus, “How do you bear unbearable pain?”
I knew he knew the answer. I knew he suffered
unendurable pain and yet he was able to endure it
and through it took hold of joy.
He gently spoke into my heart,
“You just let it hurt.”
And I did. I uncontrollably wept for five
hours. It was not a few tears I was in
convulsions. Finally the worst of it
subsided and I quietly cried for another
five hours. When I finished crying the
pain of my father‟s desertion was gone.
The hard place in my soul was soft and
tender. The death I had experienced for
so long was over and new life began to
grow. It has been so ever since.
Weeping may endure for a
night,
But joy comes in the
morning.
Psalm 30:5b (NKJV)
One terrible lie God‟s enemy and our
culture has taught us, especially we
who are men, is that tears are a sign of
weakness.
I have found that tears are actually the
way to strength and resilience.
Passing through the Valley of Weeping
(Baca), they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also fills [the pools] with
blessings.
7
They go from strength to strength,
increasing in victorious power; each of
them appears before God in Zion.
Psalm 84:6-7 (AMP)
Those who sow in tears
Shall reap in joy.
6
He who continually goes forth
weeping,
Bearing seed for sowing,
Shall doubtless come again with
rejoicing,
Bringing his sheaves with him.
Psalm 126:5-6 (NKJV)
Tears are a priceless gift from God to
release the pain of grief and to “Just let
it hurt.”
Christ, in the days of His flesh, when He had
offered up prayers and supplications with strong
crying and tears unto Him that was able to save
Him from death, and was heard in that He feared,
8
though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience
by the things which He suffered.
Hebrews 5:7-8 (KJ21)
Another important over coming
principle in grief is found in 1
Thessalonians 5:18, “In every
thing give thanks.”
But what can we give thanks
for?
Once when going through a
deep grief over one of my loved
one‟s choice to follow a path
away from God, I asked what I
could thank him for in this
terrible situation. He whispered
into the depths of my despair,
“You can know my heart.”
In the end of his grief C.S. Lewis came to
understand that God alone is the source of our
comfort in grief. He alone is our hope. He is the
object of faith. It is not that we hope in some deed
he will do but that we come to hope in Him.
Saying
Goodbye
Have you ever lost something
that was important? When I
have done this I look
everywhere I think it might be.
Often I go back to the same
places over and over again
even though I know it is not
there.
I have shared before when God
showed me that something that
was stolen from me was still
mine and I could give it to Him.
That is truest of the loss of our
loved ones. This last week as I
buried my second best friend in
the world I gave her to God.
Today I grieve her loss in hope.
But hopeless grief has no
one to whom we can give our
loss. As a result we can
become fixated on the past.
We are constantly going back
to a time in the past and
living there.
Brethren, I do not regard myself as
having laid hold of it yet; but one
thing I do: forgetting what lies
behind and reaching forward to
what lies ahead,
14
I press on
toward the goal for the prize of the
upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14 (NASB)
We are to be forward looking
people. That being said, grief is
a process to deal with the past.
The past is where we lived with
our loved one. It is not wrong to
revisit memories. It is that we
are not to be fixated and living
in the past.
I once preached in a church several
times as they were looking for a pastor.
The head of the Sunday School had
lost a daughter several years before.
Every Sunday in the Sunday School
gathering she held a memorial time for
her child. Every birthday she had a
birthday party for her. On the day of her
death she had the pastor share about
her life and pray remembrance prayers.
It had deeply harmed the congregation
and no one could reason with her. She
was fixated in the past because she
never really had let her child go. Again,
memories of a loss may never stop but
the purposeful attempt to keep those
memories alive is harmful and will
always result in not being able to say
goodbye in a final way. Not saying
goodbye in that final way leaves us
living much of our lives in the past.
So how do we say
goodbye in that final way?
I believe it is in the same
way that we would say
goodbye to anyone. We
just say, “Goodbye.”
In every service of remembrance I
have done for the last thirty years, I
have shared with people this
simple principle. I ask them to say
goodbye that day. I ask them to
understand it is not a final goodbye
but it is goodbye for the rest of this
life. I ask them to let Jesus take
their loved ones hand and take
them with him.
And when memories come, and they
will with all the pain of loss, we let them
come and grieve again. But after we
have grieved again we say goodbye
once more and let them return with
Jesus back to heaven where they are.
This is the process by which we resolve
our grief. It is a healthy one that does
not stifle our pain nor deify it. Both will
leave us unable to move on with our
lives.
This is what C.S. Lewis eventually
found. And in his finding it he was then
able to really help others – not by his
lectures but by his life. In the same way
as we go through the process of
grieving in hope God will use our lives
to help others as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xONke8WkAE8
uninformed, brethren, about those
who are asleep, so that you will not
grieve as do the rest who have no
hope.
1 Thessalonians 4:13 (NASB)
Before I begin I would like to give
testimony to the marvelous timing of
God. It was several months ago, after I
had spoken with a young woman in our
congregation who was deeply grieving
the loss of her mother that I thought my
next sermon would be for her. I have
spoken of grief several times before but
never in our congregation as the entire
subject of a talk.
My last sermon, however, came during the
crisis between Israel and Gaza. I felt to
speak on God`s love for Israel.
But I still felt in my heart that my next one
would be about grieving in hope. I could not
have imagined that only a few days before I
would share this already planned message
that I would walk through one of the greatest
losses of my life in the death of my precious
mother-in-law, my second best friend in the
universe.
As I have revisited these timeless truths
which God has shown me over a span of
many years, I have found that they are as
lifegiving today as they were the day they
were first given to me.
It is my prayer that you will find comfort as I
share with you what God has imparted to my
soul which has brought me so much comfort
throughout my life but especially in the last
two weeks.
In my personal experience
with the church universal, I
have found that there some
topics that rarely or never get
spoken on from the pulpit
even though they are central
to living our lives well.
I have never heard a full sermon
on grief except the ones I have
preached. I can say, however, I
have heard more references to
grieving here in this church than
anywhere else. A while back
Martin shared about the comfort
God had given him about his
grandmother‟s death.
I don‟t know if you have noticed but
he has shared many very
vulnerable aspects of his life with
us. So has Howard. So has Harvey.
So has Miriam. So have other
leaders in our congregation. There
is something about this we need to
understand. It is not the norm for
leaders to do this.
Unfortunately it is very rare to find
leaders who share not only their
strengths but also their vulnerability.
One of the main reasons I know I
can trust the leadership of our
church is that they do share their
struggles, weaknesses, failures and
grief openly with us.
Why does that so impress me?
Because it is the image of Jesus in
their lives.
Listen to what Isaiah said about him
hundreds of years before he
“humbled himself” and became a
human.
Who has believed our message? And to whom has
the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2
For He grew
up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root
out of parched ground; He has no stately form or
majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor
appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
3
He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one
from whom men hide their face He was despised,
and we did not esteem Him.
4
Surely our griefs He
Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; . . . .
Isaiah 53:1-4 (NASB)
But He was pierced through for our
transgressions, He was crushed for our
iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell
upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.
6
All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of
us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has
caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.
Isaiah 53:5-6 (NASB)
As I read this amazing prophetic picture
of Jesus, I am struck with the emphasis
on his vulnerability.
He was, “A man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief…”
What a gift Isaiah proclaims came to us
through Jesus in saying, “Surely our
griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows
He carried”
Our saviour went through
terrible grief for us. Yet we speak
so little about it. The lack of time
given the subject in the pulpit
tells us it is not a popular theme.
Why not?
I believe one reason is
that even hearing the word
grief stirs up memories
and emotions that we all
find difficult at best,
unbearable at worst.
Whether it is the loss of a
person we loved through
death or the loss of
someone we cherished
while they still live, all loss
in human relationship puts
us into a state of grief.
Grief can be experienced
through the loss of
anything, a job, a pet, a
material thing, an
opportunity. . . .
The Bible says there are two
kinds of grief. We grieve in hope
or we grieve in hopelessness.
When we grieve in hope the fruit
of our grief ultimately brings joy
out of even unbearable pain.
Hopeless grief always leaves
a mark on our soul. Though
others may not see it, grief in
a heart that does not have
hope eats away inside of us
like acid. We are never far
from its power to rob, kill and
destroy.
For those who grieve in hope, the
depth of the grief may be the same
or even greater than those who
grieve hopelessly.
It is not the depth or the pain of our
grief that determines it‟s effect in
our lives. It is the hope through
which we experience it.
But we do not want you to be
uninformed, brethren, about those
who are asleep, so that you will not
grieve as do the rest who have no
hope.
1 Thessalonians 4:13 (NASB)
Even as I am saying these things many
of us are remembering losses that we
may still feel helpless to face, much
less to resolve.
As pastors we often find ourselves
unable to face or resolve our own grief.
How can we be expected to lead our
people into a resolution we ourselves
cannot find? So we go silent.
Today I know very well that I will be
touching areas in some of your lives
that may awaken feelings you may want
to let slumber.
I would ask you to give me an
opportunity, as one who has walked
through this valley of the shadow of
death as you have, to share some of
what God has done to help me come
out alive.
None of us will escape life
without pain. And the result of
pain will be grief. In our first
passage Paul did not say we
would not grieve. He said we
should not grieve like those who
have no hope.
God‟s way
in Grief
Our failure to know, understand and follow
God‟s way in the process of grief has left
many of us alone and alienated even from
God.
My people perish from a lack of knowledge.
Hosea 4: 6 (KJV)
But God does not desire us to perish in
grief. Far from it. God wants us to find His
power to not only comfort us in our grief but
to redeem it fully.
So let‟s begin our look a God‟s way
in grief by looking at the
characteristics of hopeless grief.
One primary mental and emotional
result from unresolved grief is the
feeling of almost infinite aloneness.
Out of that feeling grows many
others.
The heart knows its own bitterness, And
a stranger does not share its joy.
Proverbs 14:10 (NASB)
The word bitterness here is a
description of three results of hopeless
grief. The Hebrew word is ת ּ
ר ָ מ marat.
The root ּ
ר ָ מ MAR means
bitterness, suffering, or affliction.
Hopeless grief produces all three in
our lives.
Of these three, I have
found that the clearest
expression of hopeless
grieving is bitterness.
I have seen that when we feel, helpless,
abandoned, betrayed or alone we can
let our hope be destroyed and we will
feel bitter.
Hope deferred makes the heart
sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree
of life.
Proverbs 13:12 (NASB)
King David‟s grandmother three
generations removed was named
Naomi. Because of a terrible
drought Naomi had to leave Israel
her homeland to go to Moab just to
keep from starving. In Moab she
lost, in a slow progression of death,
first her husband, then one son and
finally her last son.
Anyone understanding the middle East
at that time knows that when she lost
her male relatives she also lost
everything they owned. Women did not
inherit property. All she had left were
her clothes and two daughters-in-law.
Since she could no longer support
herself in Moab she went back to Israel
with her son‟s wives. On the way there
even one of the daughters-in-law left
her.
Here is the story after she arrived to her home
town.
On their arrival there, the whole town was excited
about them, and the women asked: “Can this be
Naomi?”
20
But she said to them, “Do not call me
Naomi [„Sweet‟]. Call me Mara [„Bitter‟], for the
Almighty has made my life very bitter.
21
I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back
empty. Why should you call me „Sweet,‟ since the
LORD has brought me to trial, and the Almighty has
pronounced evil sentence on me.”
Ruth 1:19-21 (NABRE)
Naomi wanted to be called Mara, the
same Hebrew word we discussed
earlier - “Bitter.”
She wanted to be called this because in
her mind she was left alone and in
financial ruin.
“
I went away full, but the LORD has
brought me back empty.”
She felt God had not only left her
without help, but that He was the
ultimate cause of her misery.
Why should you call me „Sweet,‟ since
the LORD has brought me to trial, and
the Almighty has pronounced evil
sentence on me.”
I do not want to trivialize this. Her
tragic story of loss happened to a
real woman. It has been repeated
millions of times throughout history.
It has happened in a lesser or
greater way in all our lives. We
cannot go through life without
experiencing it to some degree.
“Sweet” Naomi, in the midst of her
inconsolable grief lost hope as she felt
herself to be completely alone and
forsaken even by God.
As a result of her hopeless grief she
became bitter.
Her chosen identity became Mara –
“Bitter.”
This is what the enemy of God and
our souls wants to do to everyone.
He wants us to believe that we are
alone. He wants us to feel that no
one is there for us in this horrible
place. He wants to turn a sweet
heart bitter which will not only
poison us but everyone else we
touch.
Some of you today know exactly
what she felt. In the depth of your
heart, perhaps in a very secret
place where no one knows but you,
you have lost hope. You know that
the pain is still there but it has been
covered in an armor of bitterness so
thick that nothing can penetrate it.
At the same time you know that the
armor you put on to protect yourself
from further pain has become a
prison. It binds you. It does not
allow for you to express the love
you really feel for others. It does not
let you love again. And it continually
reinforces the thought you are
hopeless, forsaken and most of all,
alone.
Having lived in that same prison for
so many years I want to call you
forth from it today. Like Jesus called
forth his friend Lazarus, I want to
call you forth from the prison of
hopelessness and the tomb of
bitterness.
I am calling you today to no longer
grieve hopelessly but to grieve in
hope.
That is when the pain will find
resolution and the armor of
bitterness will fall off.
The first principle of grieving in hope
is to know that you are not alone.
You are
Never Alone
Naomi felt herself to be completely
alone but she was not.
There was one person who
remained faithfully there throughout
the darkest moments of her journey
through the shadowlands. It was a
young woman named Ruth, her
daughter-in-law.
Listen to Ruth‟s declaration she
made to Naomi but hear it as God
speaking to you:
But Ruth said, “Do not press me to go back
and abandon you!
Wherever you go I will go,
wherever you lodge I will lodge.
Your people shall be my people
and your God, my God.
17
Where you die I will die,
and there be buried.
May the LORD do thus to me, and more, if
even death separates me from you!”
Ruth 1:16-17 (NABRE)
Ruth is a picture of God to us in the
midst of grief. Her commitment to
be with Naomi no matter what can
give us great comfort in the midst of
our grief if we will let it.
God is even more committed to be
with us through our times of pain
and sorrow than Ruth was to
Naomi.
In the midst of the most difficult moments of
our lives we must remember that Jesus has
said he will be there with and for us.
He Himself has said, “I WILL
NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I
EVER FORSAKE YOU,”
Hebrews 13:5 (NASB)
I have found that many people
misunderstand the nature of grief as a
Christian. The wrongly think they are to
simply “put on a happy face” since Jesus has
overcome the grave. Many clichés are
passed out in our attempt to comfort others
and in our own discomfort with emotions of
sadness. Underneath many of those clichés
are truths but they have come to mean
something different than they first expressed.
To say, “Jesus is with us” can be the cliché of
clichés if we are not careful.
The truth that it expresses, however, is one
of the most powerful ways that we will find
our grief resolved in a positive and healthy
way.
That truth is not so
difficult for us to
understand.
This is my little
granddaughter
Esmerelda. I have
the wonderful privilege of caring for her.
Anyone who has cared for a child knows that
sometimes no matter what you do they are
inconsolable. They cry for what seems to be
no reason. I find that Ezzie does this most at
bed time.
But I have found one
thing helps her in her
sorrow. After I do
everything possible
to comfort her, I will
lay beside her bed
and put my hand into her crib and hold her
hand. Soon she quiets and soon she falls
asleep. It is not that I have to change her
circumstances to comfort her. What she
really wants to feel is that I am with her.
Trusting God
in our Grief
One thought that can keep the
knowledge that God is with us
from giving us the comfort it
should is that we believe God is
the cause of our pain.
C. S. Lewis in his
time of grief over the
death of his beloved
Joy found himself
wrestling with this
thought. On his first
return to his faculty
dinner after she died
the conversation
went like this:
C.S. - “I wasn't going to come, but then I thought I
would.”
Christopher, “Life must go on.”
C.S. “I don't know that it must, but it certainly does.”
Christopher, “I'm sorry, Jack.”
C.S. “Thank you, Christopher.”
Christopher, “We're all deeply sorry.”
C.S. “Thank you.”
Christopher, “Anything I can do?”
C.S. - “Yes, just don't tell me it's all for the best,
that's all.
His pastor - “Only God knows why these things
have to happen, Jack.”
C.S. “God knows, but does God care? –
Christopher, “Of course. We see so little
here. We're not the creator. We're the
creatures, aren't we?”
C.S. “We're the rats in the cosmic laboratory.
I've no doubt the experiment is for our own
good, but... it still makes God the
vivisectionist, doesn't it? It won't do. It's this
bloody awful mess, and that's all there is to
it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GJdtzohP3c
It seems hard to imagine that such
an amazing Christian like C.S.
Lewis could have had such
thoughts, much less have
expressed them openly. But he was
doing what we have to do to resolve
grief properly. He was being honest.
Being honest is not the same as speaking the truth.
The truth is God deeply cares.
He is not the one who brought death on humanity
While His sovereignty will triumph over death one
day it still has its sting today.
It is not, nor has ever been his will. He did not want
the first person on earth to die. Nor will he want the
last person on earth to die.
But hopeless grief can tell us that God is the cause
of our pain and we can believe it.
When it does we must be honest but we must also
be willing to believe what God says about himself.
Jesus is God in a human body. What he did is what
the Father does. The way he responded was the
way the Father responds. We must let that truth go
deep into our hearts lest we ever think that God the
Father is, as Lewis felt, some aloof “vivisectionist”
who has no heart for us.
A story of Jesus raising a dead man to life gives us
a glimpse into what the Father‟s heart is for us in
our grief.
Jesus was special friends with two sisters and a
brother. The sisters were Mary and Martha. The
brother was Lazarus. Jesus was in the northern
part of Israel when messengers came to call him to
come quickly because Lazarus was very ill. It is so
puzzling that instead of coming right away, he
stayed where he was for a few more days. Finally
he told his followers he was going to go to Lazarus
and wake him up from sleep. They thought it was
strange that he would go so far just to wake him
up. He then told them Lazarus was dead. And then
he said an almost heartless sounding thing. He
said he was glad he was not there to heal him.
While I am sure many people
interpret this part of the story in
a different way, I believe it
shows Jesus has a greater plan
in our lives than fixing our
situation. In this, God may seem
heartless. He does not always
correct that impression.
C.S. Lewis, for a time in his grief, had
his heart revealed as to what he really
thought God was like. And God did not
challenge those thoughts by making
everything right.
He sometimes does let our own
thoughts remain without a response, or
one we might think heartless, to show
us our own lack of trust in him.
When we face these moments of
our deepest loss we find out what
we really believe. And Jesus does
not hinder us from finding that out
by false comfort. I believe this is a
severe mercy.
Because of our tendency to place
our hope in circumstances, he may
give no answer to our questions
except to trust him.
Jesus knows that the only place of sure
hope we have is to trust in him alone.
John 11:14 So Jesus then said to
them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and
I am glad for your sakes that I was
not there, so that you may
believe; . . . ."
Remember the last time I preached? I
spoke of how Jesus purposefully acted
in a way toward a woman whose child
was dying that seemed absolutely cruel.
But what happened was the woman
walked right through her pride and right
into true faith. In the end her child was
healed and she had one of the greatest
commendations of faith Jesus gave any
one. “Oh woman, great is your faith.”
In the process of him tearing
our hearts away from trusting
circumstances to trusting him,
we must believe that this
severe mercy comes from a
heart of infinite compassion.
Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus
was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary
stayed at the house. 21 Martha then said to
Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my
brother would not have died. 22 "Even now I
know that whatever You ask of God, God will
give You.“ 23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother
will rise again.“ 24 Martha said to Him, "I
know that he will rise again in the
resurrection on the last day.“
John 11:19-24
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the
life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,
26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will
never die. Do you believe this?“ 27 She said to
Him, "Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the
Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into
the world.“ 28 When she had said this, she went
away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly,
"The Teacher is here and is calling for you.“ 29 And
when she heard it, she got up quickly and was
coming to Him. . . .
John 11:25-30
when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw
Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him,
"Lord, if You had been here, my brother
would not have died.“ 33 When Jesus
therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews
who came with her also weeping, He was
deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, 34
and said, "Where have you laid him?" They
said to Him, "Lord, come and see.“ 35
Jesus wept.
John 11: 31-35
.
Jesus wept.
In spite of the questioning and the appearance
of unconcern, Jesus deeply loved Martha,
Mary and Lazarus. But they did not know it.
They thought that had he come to them in
their crisis he would have healed their sick
brother and he would have lived.
As if to confirm their lack of trust in him, Jesus
purposefully did not come not there physically
and Lazarus did die.
What was Jesus doing?
He was leading them through the valley of
the shadow of death so that they would
come to fear no evil.
Even though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are
with me; Your rod and Your staff, they
comfort me.
Psalm 23:4 (NASB)
Though he knew full well that in only a few
moments their sorrow would be turned to
absolute stunning joy when his Father would
hear his voice and his deeply loved friend
would walk out of the grave.
Still, he honored Mary and Martha‟s grief by
entering into it with them. He wept with them.
This is how we keep from making the
awesome truths about the resurrection and
the life to come from being empty clichés.
We, “Weep with those who weep.”
I think the greatest revelation for Mary and
Martha that day was not that Jesus could
raise the dead. I think the greatest revelation
was that he loved them so much that it drew
him into their grief.
Though their grief had hidden it, his heart
was always with them.
He wanted them to know without doubt his
presence in their lives was always there
even when his physical body was not.
We need not walk the valley of the shadow
of death alone. Jesus‟ tears reveal the heart
whose hand we can trust to lead us safely
through the darkest night.
God is not only with us in valley of the
shadow of death. He grieves with us. He not
only gives us permission to grieve, he joins
with us. He is touched with the feelings of
our vulnerability.
For we do not have a high priest who cannot
sympathize with our weaknesses, but One
who has been tempted in all things as we
are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:15 (NASB)
I have shared what I believe are the two
most important principles of grieving
with hope.
Jesus will always be with us no matter
how dark our lives become.
Jesus loves us, grieves with us and
comforts us with himself.
Today we partake in a vivid reminder of
these two truths. I have chosen for us to
take communion at this time in the
service, during the sermon, to
emphasize what Jesus did for us on the
cross. He gave his life to save us and
all those we love from death. No matter
what we may feel, what we do in this
remembrance meal tells us we are not
alone and we are loved immensely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfveawSAHJA
These two principles have comforted
and guided me through many days of
grief. They have helped me to grieve
with hope.
Building on these two foundational
truths I have found other important
truths and practical ways to apply them.
Give him
to me.
Not long after I became a Christian I visited an old
man in a rest home in Broken Arrow, a small village
just out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The old man‟s name
was Thomas Terry. He was my paternal
grandfather. His life story was one of continual
pain. He was a wood worker. His finest
craftsmanship was displayed in the violins he
made. In the years known as the “Dust Bowl” in
Oklahoma he could not sell his violins so he built
wooden oil dereks to pump the oil from the ground
where oil was first discovered in America. One
terrible day when he was working alone the derek
collapsed crushing one hand completely and
leaving his other hand with only two fingers.
Only a few weeks later, because of the loss
of his ability to provide for his family, his wife
and eight children deserted him. They went
to California along with thousands of other
“Okies.” He spent the rest of his life alone
with only an occasional visit from my father
and another son.
When I came to visit him my heart was
touched with such a love for him that I
decided to move to Tulsa and care for him as
best I could.
I did so for several years. During that time I
came to love him like I had never loved
anyone. This was one of the significant ways
that God began to build His love in me. Not
through teaching or doctrine but by
expressing his love through me.
Those years were so wonderful. I never
thought they would end. But one day as I
was preparing to go to Israel for the summer,
God asked me to do the hardest thing I had
ever done.
I had come to the nursing home to say
goodbye for two months. As I was
holding those beautiful hands that still
testified to the cost he paid to care for
his family, God said,
“Give him to me.”
I knew what he meant. And I did not
want to do it.
As I thought about what God was asking me
it was as if he said, “I have kept him until
now for you. All that he has suffered before
in his life brought him and you together for
these precious years. You led him to me but
now you must trust me to care for him when
you cannot. I will take care of him. Give him
to me.”
I knew God loved him even more than I did
and I also knew that he would be so much
happier with Jesus.
In that moment, which remains as an almost
eternal one, I said to God that He could have
my precious grand father. I put his hand into
Jesus‟. I said goodbye to grandpa forever.
Only a few weeks later on the very day that I
put my hands on the walls of Jerusalem
where I would meet the most important friend
in my life, my best friend, my wife Carie,
Jesus held my grandfather‟s hand as they
walked through the valley of the shadow of
death together.
I still grieve that parting. And it is right that I
do so. But I do not grieve without hope.
I know that Jesus was with my grandfather
always.
I know that Jesus loves him even more than I
do.
I know my love for him would never harm
him but always care for him. So I know the
same about Jesus since I know it was him
who put that love in my heart in the first
place.
The pain then is part of
the happiness now. That's
the deal.
Joy Davidman-Gresham, C.S. Lewis`s wife.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrXU3oZEqiA
The issue of pain is a mystery. Why would a
God who cares about us allow us to suffer?
Why would a God who is said to be all
powerful allow circumstances in our lives that
harm us not only in our bodies but leave us
devastated internally?
I do not intend to answer those questions
and frankly I do not have the answers even
in my own mind.
What I do have is what God has shared with
me in those times.
While it will not always be so, in the present
age joy and grief are inextricably linked.
When we love we will certainly one day
grieve. This mystery seems cruel if we do not
have hope in Jesus. But no matter how we
look at it, it is true. The more you love
someone the more you will hurt when they
are gone.
This linking of Joy and Suffering in relationship is
the principle of the cross.
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so
great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every
weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set
before us,
2
looking unto Jesus, the author and
finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set
before Him endured the cross, despising the
shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NKJV)
The deeper the bond in a relationship the
greater the sorrow will be in their loss.
I have found that if we try to stop the pain we
at the same time stop the joy.
I have seen many people when faced with a
deep loss make a commitment to never
allow their hearts to love in that way again.
That is the beginning of a life of continual
sorrow. It often leads to addiction. I know
that all to well.
During the earliest years of my life, my mom was
continually running away from my dad who in his
jealousy had become abusive to her. She would
put my younger brother and I in the back seat of
the car where we ate and slept for days until we
were far enough away that dad couldn‟t find us.
I‟ll never forget one of the last times we saw dad.
He had kidnapped us at gunpoint with the getaway
car parked just down the street. I felt such terror as
the car careened uncontrollably, tires screeching
and the passenger door swinging open. I fell
headlong onto the pavement and watched the rear
tire miss my face by inches. That event marked the
end of their marriage and a life of pain for us boys.
I think my deepest pain was not having a dad. The
pain of dad‟s departure was felt over and over in so
many different ways. I never knew when it would
rear its ugly head and taunt me with words like,
“You don‟t have a dad.” One summer I walked
several miles to an electronic exhibition at the fair
grounds. When I reached the entry gate I was
asked, “Where‟s your dad, Sonny?”
“I don‟t have one now.” I replied.
“Sorry, but you have to have a dad to get in.”
Eventually the rejection and anger turned into a
hard, cold, emotionless knot in the pit of my
stomach.
After I came to know Jesus I found great joy in my
life. But there still remained a part of me that felt
like it was locked up…. Frozen in time….. A place
of intense pain that I had simply sealed off.
Almost twenty years after my father left I was sitting
in a classroom on the YWAM base in Cambridge
Ontario. Carie and I were taking their Discipleship
Training Course. The speaker was talking about
the cross. As he spoke the Spector of my dad‟s
desertion loomed large in my mind. I asked a
question that day I had never asked before. I said
to Jesus, “How do you bear unbearable pain?”
I knew he knew the answer. I knew he suffered
unendurable pain and yet he was able to endure it
and through it took hold of joy.
He gently spoke into my heart,
“You just let it hurt.”
And I did. I uncontrollably wept for five
hours. It was not a few tears I was in
convulsions. Finally the worst of it
subsided and I quietly cried for another
five hours. When I finished crying the
pain of my father‟s desertion was gone.
The hard place in my soul was soft and
tender. The death I had experienced for
so long was over and new life began to
grow. It has been so ever since.
Weeping may endure for a
night,
But joy comes in the
morning.
Psalm 30:5b (NKJV)
One terrible lie God‟s enemy and our
culture has taught us, especially we
who are men, is that tears are a sign of
weakness.
I have found that tears are actually the
way to strength and resilience.
Passing through the Valley of Weeping
(Baca), they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also fills [the pools] with
blessings.
7
They go from strength to strength,
increasing in victorious power; each of
them appears before God in Zion.
Psalm 84:6-7 (AMP)
Those who sow in tears
Shall reap in joy.
6
He who continually goes forth
weeping,
Bearing seed for sowing,
Shall doubtless come again with
rejoicing,
Bringing his sheaves with him.
Psalm 126:5-6 (NKJV)
Tears are a priceless gift from God to
release the pain of grief and to “Just let
it hurt.”
Christ, in the days of His flesh, when He had
offered up prayers and supplications with strong
crying and tears unto Him that was able to save
Him from death, and was heard in that He feared,
8
though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience
by the things which He suffered.
Hebrews 5:7-8 (KJ21)
Another important over coming
principle in grief is found in 1
Thessalonians 5:18, “In every
thing give thanks.”
But what can we give thanks
for?
Once when going through a
deep grief over one of my loved
one‟s choice to follow a path
away from God, I asked what I
could thank him for in this
terrible situation. He whispered
into the depths of my despair,
“You can know my heart.”
In the end of his grief C.S. Lewis came to
understand that God alone is the source of our
comfort in grief. He alone is our hope. He is the
object of faith. It is not that we hope in some deed
he will do but that we come to hope in Him.
Saying
Goodbye
Have you ever lost something
that was important? When I
have done this I look
everywhere I think it might be.
Often I go back to the same
places over and over again
even though I know it is not
there.
I have shared before when God
showed me that something that
was stolen from me was still
mine and I could give it to Him.
That is truest of the loss of our
loved ones. This last week as I
buried my second best friend in
the world I gave her to God.
Today I grieve her loss in hope.
But hopeless grief has no
one to whom we can give our
loss. As a result we can
become fixated on the past.
We are constantly going back
to a time in the past and
living there.
Brethren, I do not regard myself as
having laid hold of it yet; but one
thing I do: forgetting what lies
behind and reaching forward to
what lies ahead,
14
I press on
toward the goal for the prize of the
upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14 (NASB)
We are to be forward looking
people. That being said, grief is
a process to deal with the past.
The past is where we lived with
our loved one. It is not wrong to
revisit memories. It is that we
are not to be fixated and living
in the past.
I once preached in a church several
times as they were looking for a pastor.
The head of the Sunday School had
lost a daughter several years before.
Every Sunday in the Sunday School
gathering she held a memorial time for
her child. Every birthday she had a
birthday party for her. On the day of her
death she had the pastor share about
her life and pray remembrance prayers.
It had deeply harmed the congregation
and no one could reason with her. She
was fixated in the past because she
never really had let her child go. Again,
memories of a loss may never stop but
the purposeful attempt to keep those
memories alive is harmful and will
always result in not being able to say
goodbye in a final way. Not saying
goodbye in that final way leaves us
living much of our lives in the past.
So how do we say
goodbye in that final way?
I believe it is in the same
way that we would say
goodbye to anyone. We
just say, “Goodbye.”
In every service of remembrance I
have done for the last thirty years, I
have shared with people this
simple principle. I ask them to say
goodbye that day. I ask them to
understand it is not a final goodbye
but it is goodbye for the rest of this
life. I ask them to let Jesus take
their loved ones hand and take
them with him.
And when memories come, and they
will with all the pain of loss, we let them
come and grieve again. But after we
have grieved again we say goodbye
once more and let them return with
Jesus back to heaven where they are.
This is the process by which we resolve
our grief. It is a healthy one that does
not stifle our pain nor deify it. Both will
leave us unable to move on with our
lives.
This is what C.S. Lewis eventually
found. And in his finding it he was then
able to really help others – not by his
lectures but by his life. In the same way
as we go through the process of
grieving in hope God will use our lives
to help others as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xONke8WkAE8
