When Grief and Loss are Inconvenient

Days after accepting a new job, I learned that my mom had cancer. A few weeks after that, I realized it was progressing incredibly fast. A few weeks later, she was gone.

When her 70th birthday came in December, we had no idea it would be her last. It wasn’t part of the plan for 2016 to bury one of the kindest, most loving, straight-shooting, self-sacrificing mothers this world has known.

It is inconvenient to find yourself crying on the way to meet friends…and your makeup is on the counter at home. It’s difficult to turn in a resignation letter for a job you held for five weeks. It’s awkward to leave the room at a birthday dinner because your brother just opened a card that his mom purchased before her passing.

The natural reactions that well up within are resistance and questioning. It’s not supposed to be this way. This shouldn’t be happening. She doesn’t deserve this. This isn’t fair. This isn’t right. Why her? Why now? What happens next?

I understand why people question God. When grief hits your life and throws you off balance and off schedule, you feel helpless and desperate to gain back some feeling of control.

It’s easier to blame God than to accept truth.

Sickness and death are consequences of man’s fall from God’s perfection to our current state of sin and wickedness. Does God have control over every aspect of our lives? Absolutely. But much of the time, our lives follow the natural laws of existence. We are born. We live healthy or sickly lives based on our genetic lineage and our lifestyle choices. Either by accidental or natural causes, we die at the time God has appointed for our lives on earth to end. Then based on whether or not we accepted or rejected the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on our behalf, our souls live on in eternal joy with Christ or eternal torment apart from Him.

Intellectually, we understand that everyone goes through this same process, but when someone you love is in pain, you are in pain. And pain trumps logic and reason. When you feel like an unseen force has a vice grip on your soul, you can’t breath, can’t eat, can’t sleep, and can’t think straight. You instinctively want someone to pay for the pain. The drunk driver, the doctor, God.

The thing we so often fail to see is that Someone already paid for our pain. Someone that has experienced the same emotions and disappointment and loss that we have, chose to give His sinless life to pay for the horrible grief we experience as a result of sin. Jesus’ sacrifice doesn’t eliminate our pain, but He gives our pain purpose and hope. Through our sorrow, we can rejoice in a God that sees our tears and is walking with us in our grief. His sacrifice makes it possible for us to see our loved ones again in eternity and for us to help others in their pain while here on earth. We can pray for each other in understanding because we have been where they are.

My dear friend, Heather, lost her dad three months ago. When she tells me she is praying for me I am encouraged, because I know that she really is praying and that she knows exactly how I feel and what I need. Another dear friend, Paul, is sitting with his mother in the hospital as she fights to recover from bypass surgery. I know how he feels helpless to care for her as he wants and how he would take her pain on himself in an instant if he could. I know that he fears losing her, and how he prays for her healing in addition to surrendering to God’s will if He should choose to take her home. I know this because I was in the same place several weeks ago, holding my own mom’s bruised, IV laden hand. This understanding helps me pray for Paul, and his dad, sister, wife, and kids as they all walk through this scary time together.

Grief and Loss are Inconvenient Gifts

Grief and loss are inconvenient, but they are also refining. They help us see the true state of our relationship with Christ and with others. They help us realize what truly mattters in this life. They give us the gift of reorganized priorities. They enable us to have greater empathy for the lost and hurting in this sin-sick world.

Grief and loss are inconvenient, but they give us a chance to reconnect, to forgive, to love, to honor memories and a life well lived. Choosing to hold on to pain, anger, and resistance to God is to hinder the growth, comfort, and freedom God longs to give us in our trial. Acknowledge the hurt, but accept the healing as well.

What if blessings come through rain drops?
What if healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near?
What if my greatest disappointments, or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights,
Are Your mercies in disguise?

-Blessings by Laura Story