How Do You See Grief? Help for the Hurting

He asked me, “How do you see grief”, in the quiet parking lot, in the same frozen spot where I have wrestled with Jesus.

“I see grief, like a wave”, I shared…

Lapping itself involuntarily upon your life. If you fight it, you’ll drown. When you ignore it, grief will carry you out to waters, drowning you in its undercurrent.

Grief unassumingly shadows the innocent. At times, when their least suspecting. It blankets even the strongest among us, distributing without any kind of partiality.

But if you rest. If you accept. If you understand the rhythms of life, the ebb, flow, and ragging of open waters…

You can reflect the morning sun like glass shining back brilliantly at you…

And it is then, you’ll realize…

Grief is not your enemy.

I see a situation in the Bible. Lazarus. Jesus friend. The brother of Mary and Martha, dying. The sisters called out for Jesus who was far off at the time. But He didn’t come….

Jesus CHOSE not to come.

Have you ever felt like that? Like the window of life is on the verge of draining you. You weep. Cry. Beg your  Savior. But you don’t see anybody. No one seeming coming near to answer your deepest cry?

“Where is God? Why didn’t He come? Doesn’t He love me enough to save me or my loved one?”

Mary and Martha must have begged furiously, not just their Savior, but their friend, Jesus.

And sometimes the grave of our own hearts keep filling; with pain, heartache, remorse and regret…

And it can feel like a stone has been placed over our hearts, like the one over the tomb of Lazarus…

The brother, Mary and Martha loved, dying. The One they felt helpless to save as they stood by and prepared his burial cloth, before watching the tombstone rolled in place.

Does our grief get burried with the dead? Or is it just awakened? Does our faith get squashed with the spices placed carefully on the past? Or does it rise in the face of pain, awaken when we need it most to fill the gapping holes within us?

Do we wrestle with relationship with the One we know can save? Does God come near when we are in pain? Or do we need to be positive, good, well-behaved before he’ll ever entertain our prayers?

Jesus waited TWO DAYS before coming to the side of the two sisters grieving for their brother.

Jesus not only gave space to the grieving women, but he also seemed to ALLOW this time of heartache for the benefit of others and the revealing of His goodness.

And in the end, their grieving wasn’t a curse, but a doorway to their Savior, and ultimately to their own healing.

Has God allowed grief in your life? Does it feel like you wait and tried and cried out to God…but He seemed to have stayed silent…

For days, for weeks, for months….For YEARS?

The story goes on…

After two days, Jesus came to Lazarus’ tomb. It was only then He declared…

“This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (John 11:4)

A nine-year-old little girl was in the back of my car the other day. She stated, kind of out of the blue, kind of unexpectedly, about nothing specifically…”We don’t die!” 

“What? We don’t die?” My heart questioned at first. My adult mind tried filter through my spirit what she was saying.

Then, she goes on…

“We don’t die, we just live in a different place.”

I knew what she was talking about, “Heaven”. 

And I know this better than most, the short breath between this life and the next. The passing transition that takes you to a place where there’s no heartache, no tears, no pain….

Just LOVE.

And isn’t it just like a little child to remind me of something I was once excellent at preaching, her speaking almost prophetically to my soon to be struggling heart?

Isn’t it like God to heal me, even before I needed healing. To open my eyes to see as He sees death, using a child to be His messenger….of redemption, His purposes and plans….of eternity.

So, does grieving have some kind of benefit? Is sorrow the price for heightened understanding of God? Giving greater revelation of who God is and what He might be capable of?

Someone once said…

“Grief never ends…but it changes. It’s a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith…It is a sign of love.”

“Liquid love”, my Mama calls the tears streaming down our faces recently.

Jesus used Lazarus death to show Mary and Martha who He was, through their grief, through their loss, through the death of one of the people closest to Him.

What is grief showing you? How is grief leading you to experience more of Him, at feet of Jesus?

Sometimes, grief can feel like a bowling ball. At first, you hold it. You know it’s there. But you don’t really feel it.

At times, you want to take that ball and cram it down the isle, smashing the pins of those who you feel have caused your grief.

But at other times, that ball it tied to your wrists, and the longer you sit and hold it, look at it, embrace it…the heavier the ball of grief can seem.

The wisest among us, hold the bowling ball of grief, acknowledge it’s worth, then they use it to dismantle the dark pins, still standing in their path.

Jesus himself can understand our pain. He was a “man of sorrows”. (Isaiah 53) He carried not only the weight of our ache, but the weight of the sins of the world.

He perhaps felt that weight most when he kneeled in the Garden of Gethsemane, so anguished sweat of blood dripped down his face.

It was then Jesus asked God to take this yoke from him. (Matt 11)

Still, as we look at this picture of Jesus, on His way to the cross, I think we can learn something from His humility.

Jesus didn’t deny, avoid, or try to control the pain He was feeling. In fact, Jesus stopped. He got low. And He confessed His weakness, humbly to the Father.

Then, when He felt nearly crushed by the weight of the pain, the price He would pay for us, Jesus didn’t run away from the painful process. He faced it with courage.

What is your Garden of Gethsemane?

Do you run from grief? Deny it’s existence? Live in a state of a superficial face of happiness until the bowling ball of grief crushes you to smithereens?

Instead of faking happiness, denying His anguish, Jesus stepped one foot at a time, forward, towards the hill of His suffering, with the cross of our punshment lifted high upon His back.

Jesus bore our sins. He walked towards Calvary, not away from it.

Jesus was not a victim, helpless martyr, some kind of unitelligent puppet or a zombie-like robot following His Father’s orders.

Instead, Jesus willingly laid down His life, knowing He would be resurrected. No one took it from Him. (John 10:18)

He stepped towards grief, because He knew, at the other end of His pain, there would be healing.

In the same way, often for us, at the other end of all our pain and grief, healing awaits us too.

Arthur Golden once said…

“Grief is a most peculiar thing, we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord.  The room grows cold and we can do nothing but shiver. But, it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.”

Grief will not last forever.

“There is pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning”, Scripture tells us. (Psalms 30:5)

Loss is but a stepping stone of ache that is a reminder that love wasn’t waisted. To risk loving means to know there will be hurting.

Yet, we can step out bravely into love, into its depth by faith, knowing life without love is waisted.

And then, we step out boldly towards love over and over again, despite the risk of heartache we are making…

Love and hurt live simultaneously inside all of us, daily.

Still the brave do know, their hope isn’t in one moment or experience, but in the long, slow, painful tred to the mountain of His love where faith resides, freedom is gained and life abudant waits for those are brave enough to keep on tredding.

Because any life stagnant in bitterness, sorrow, loss and regret is simply waisted.

“Who may ascend onto the mountain of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to what is false, nor has sworn [oaths] deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is the generation (description) of those who diligently seek Him and require Him as their greatest need who seek Your face.” (Psalm 24:3-6)

The truly brave never run from suffering.

If Jesus himself faced death and allowed the sorrow of Mary and Martha due to their brothers Lazarus’ passing….

Surely, He will bring glory from our sorrow too, from our life of grieving also. So, let’s let go. Trust. Accept, God has something better for us on the other side of our anguish.

Let’s step forwards, towards the pain, as Jesus did. Let’s be brave and allow the waves of His mercy to wash over us, cleansing us from our own sorrow and unrighteousness.

Jesus went the cross for you and me. He bore our grief and took the stripes for yours and my pain and suffering.

Let’s stop avoiding the pain. Let’s stop putting on a happy face and pretending we aren’t hurting. Let’s live, with all the feelings brought to us as carnal human beings…

Whether we deserve what happened to us or not.

God has something so much better in store. And His promises are filled with joy and glory, hope and healing…

Glory waits like the most beautiful present somehow wrapped up in a package of grief…

And it is ours for the taking…

Beauty awaits. Won’t you be brave and experience, the other side of suffering.