Because I have been walking with some families who are either in pre-bereavement or in the valley of grief, let me share some thoughts that hopefully provide a better perspective.
Because God loves us beyond measure, the Holy never lets pain come into our lives without a purpose.
In other words, God’s grace turns every crisis into a teaching moment to draw us closer to the Holy and to strengthen our faith. So, what does our Lord and Savior want us to learn amidst this dark, valley experience?
The first lesson is that the Holy Spirit is here to comfort us. In Matthew 5:4, Jesus taught, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” When my children were small and they got hurt, the first thing they would do was come running to me! And I, in turn, hearing their cries, would go running to them! My one focus, as their dad, was to comfort them. And so, it is in our relationship with our spiritual dad. Psalm 34:18 instructs us: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
While in seminary, one of my seminary friend’s twelve-year-old son was killed in a tragic accident. As we mourned with our brother, one of our professors prayed this prayer: “God, I am amazed at what you can do with a broken heart when you get all the pieces. So, we give you all the pieces.” At chapel that day, our fellow seminarian knelt before the Lord, and we gathered around him laying our hands on him as he prayed offering all of the pieces of his broken heart to the Lord.
We affirmed God’s comfort in Psalm 121:1- “I life up my eyes unto the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven, and earth.” The “Maker of heaven and earth” comes to us, running to us, his children, to comfort us in our brokenness.
The apostle Paul learned this lesson and wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ, our comfort overflows.”
Nahum 1:7 lifts our spirits when we hear the prophet say: “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.”
God comes RUNNING TO US to take us up in his arms and speaks softly in our ear: “Be not dismayed whatever betide, I will take care of you. Beneath my wings of love abide, I will take care of you.” (Adapted from the hymn: “God Will Take Care of You”, p. 64 in The Baptist Hymnal).
Jesus does not want us to be unrealistic about the pains of this life. The Holy tells us in John 16:33: “I have told you these things, so that, in me, you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” So, what can we take comfort in? John 3:16 answers. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”
The second lesson of this “teaching moment” is that God does not want our pain to define us. He desires our faith to define us! His disciples were overwhelmed by fear; but Jesus encouraged them to rise above their fear to live in faith when he spoke to their hearts in John 14:1-3: “Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms! If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again to receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also.”
God wants us to have faith in knowing that when the Holy changes anything in our lives, the Holy always improves it. An exhilarating insight into death is that God looks upon our transition from this earth as a “divine rescue!” For those of us left behind, God wants our faith to see into the invisible when we celebrate this promise in 2 Corinthians 5:1: “For we know (we Christians know) if this earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building of God, a house eternal in the heavens not made by human hands.”
Therefore, God’s promises carry us above the trials of this life and heal us in the broken places.”