“God blesses those people who grieve. They will find comfort!” (Matthew5:4)
In the past few weeks, several people we know have experienced loss in their lives. Some lost their spouse, some their parent; one lost their son. Their sorrow has prompted God’s Spirit to nudge me to write this blog. Death is the final chapter to this volume called life, and it leaves the survivors wrestling with deep emotions of sorrow and grief.
The greatest grief I have experienced in my life came on December 18, 2013. We received the call about midnight that no parent ever wants to receive. Our 40-year-old son had accidently been struck and killed by a train. The pain a parent experiences in that moment is insurmountable. Life seems to come to a stop, and you think you will never be able to recover. Our immediate need was to go be with our daughter-in-law and granddaughter. We all gathered together with shattered hearts.
But God is the God who “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3)
I can attest to the truth of that verse. Through my own grief, God has taught me three very valuable lessons that I would like to share with you. My prayer is that my lessons will help you in your own time of grief.
The first lesson God taught me was that no matter how deep my pain and sorrow went His grace went deeper. I discovered that no matter how great the weight of my pain burrowed deep into my soul, God’s grace was there to hold it in his loving hands. In my worse times of despair, God was there to comfort me. The second lesson I learned was how to accept my life where it was – and not where I wanted it to be. Self-pity can cause us to hold on to our loss and not accept the reality of what has happened. That causes us to live our lives with a cloud of “what if” and “if only” hanging over our head every moment. Life on this planet was never going to be the same without Chris. I was comforted with the truth that I would see him again in heaven, but for now, I needed to embrace and live a life that was, not worse, but different than it was before December 18, 2013. The last lesson I have learned is that though you will grieve the loss of your loved one for the rest of your life, God will bring you to the place where grief ceases to define your life. Loss has a tendency to define life for a time. At first, you measure life by the days, weeks, and months since your grief began; but the time does come when you realize you are going to be alright because God’s grace is filling you. The grief is still there. The effects of it changes.
I pray these lessons help anyone reading this in their journey through pain and sorrow. I know these truths have certainly helped me. Now over five years after Chris’ death I can honestly say that God has brought good into my life through my painful grief.
Darlene