Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow.
—LEO TOLSTOY
THEY SAY YOU’RE never supposed to start a book or story or chapter with “The phone rang,” but the phone did ring, waking me from an exhausted sleep at 2:00 a.m. My husband’s son had stayed with him at the hospital to allow me a few hours at home. Now I heard his voice say, “You need to come to the hospital.”
And three hours later I returned home a widow.
Nothing can fully prepare you for the experience of grief. Even if your loved one’s death was not a complete surprise, your world has shockingly changed forever. Your life, your thoughts, your time, your belongings, your emotions, your daily routine, your faith—suddenly they all feel foreign. It can be difficult to even recognize yourself. What do you do now?
The reality of grief you find yourself in is almost never what you thought it would be like. Your world has been ruptured in a way you never could have anticipated. A part of you is gone. Maybe it feels like all of you is gone! You might wish you could wake up from this nightmare and discover it was just a dream. But that isn’t possible.
“Grief is a journey.” I heard and read that statement many times in the early days after my husband’s death, and I hated the idea. I didn’t want to go on a journey! I wanted someone to tell me what to do. I wanted to know how to get through this quickly, how to stop hurting, how to do grief “right” so I wouldn’t keep struggling. With billions of people having lost loved ones in this world, surely someone somewhere had figured it out and could tell me what I needed to know.
But no one could tell me, and no one can tell you either. No one had your relationship with your loved one. No one felt quite the same love, dysfunction, joy, quirkiness, humor, tension, security, pain, or longing that characterized your relationship with your spouse, child, parent, sibling, or best friend. Yes, others have experienced all those emotions. But no one has experienced them the way you have. Your relationship was unique, and your grief will be unique as well.
That may not feel very comforting right now, but hopefully it at least affirms that others have felt the aloneness you’re feeling as you grieve. The very best that friends, family, and fellow believers can do in supporting you does not take that feeling away. It’s your loss. Others can do much, and we’ll talk about how to access the support the body of Christ is designed to offer a little later, but others cannot take your loss away from you.
Grief may feel like you’re walking through a dark valley without a map, and then suddenly any flicker of light goes away. You don’t recognize where you are, you’re not sure there’s a “there” to walk toward, and you can’t see one step in front of you. When you do try to move, you keep banging into crags and crevices, hitting your head on branches, and falling over unseen rocks. Or it may seem this valley is flooded and you’re about to drown. Either way, it’s tempting to just quit, to give up and die, unsure there’s any way out.
But don’t quit. You may well need to slow down. You may make a few wrong turns and have to retrace some steps occasionally. You will hit some dead ends. Some boulders will seem too big to get past. Some passages will seem too narrow to navigate through. Sometimes you will have to pause and nurse your wounds a bit before continuing. Sometimes the air will suddenly change and take your breath away. But don’t quit.
As dark as it is for you, as paralyzed and alone as you feel, as impossible as it seems to take one more step, that’s exactly what you need to do. The only way to make it through this valley is by taking one small step at a time. This book will be one tool to help you do that. It will help you understand how your grief is not nearly as unique as it seems. It will show you what taking one more step looks like and offer you support as you do so. It will help you know where to direct your precious and limited energy in a way that will help you move forward along this journey.
It’s been said that time heals all wounds. That’s not true. Some people give up, stop living, and remain stuck in the dark valley of grief. Some wounds become infected, begin to stink, and spread their darkness and pain to everything and everyone around them. Not everyone comes out of this place of pain.
But that doesn’t have to be you. It’s your choice. The wounds of your grief do not have to stink. You don’t have to be the one stuck in your pain. Healing is available, but it’s not automatic. You do not find healing simply because time passes but as a result of what you do with that time. Doing the work of grief will allow healing to come. Personally, I didn’t like that idea one bit! But I learned that doing the work of grief does lead you out of the dark valley.
Your energy is limited, and there may be other aspects of life that demand your attention right now also. But remember that the way out is through. Doing the work of grief means intentionally addressing the things this book talks about such as reviewing your loss, embracing your emotions, learning to care for yourself, and discovering how to take God on the journey with you. You don’t have to take up residence in the dark valley. You will not be able to ignore it; indeed, you shouldn’t. But keep going.
You do not find healing simply because time passes but as a result of what you do with that time.
The journey through grief probably seems long and impossible right now. Know that in this journey it matters very little how quickly you move forward; it only matters that you keep moving, however hesitatingly and slowly. This book will help you know how to do that and give you some tools to keep on doing that.
I encourage you to decide right now that you will keep walking. Some days that will be one tiny baby step forward. Some days it will feel as though you’ve slipped backward. Some days you may feel as though you’ve moved further along this journey than you realized. The important thing is that you keep placing one foot in front of the other. If you do that, I guarantee you will not remain in this dark valley forever.
God Is With You on the Journey
The morning I arrived home from the hospital a widow, I sat down with a cup of coffee and my Bible. I opened it to 1 Corinthians 15, Paul’s treatise on death and resurrection. I felt lost. My head had known that barring an unusual miracle, this day would come, and I did not doubt God would be there for me. But my heart desperately needed a touch point, something to hold on to. That day and in the weeks and months that followed, I desperately wished for God to take away the pain. I wanted God to magically bring me out of the valley of grief and make me all OK again.
He didn’t. And He probably won’t for you either. Death hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. And we’ll talk more about that in the next chapter.
But I discovered something that is more powerful than the relief of pain. I discovered that hope and pain can coexist. That’s one of the biggest differences about grief for the believer. The sting of death hurts just as bad. The loss is as great. Your heart is as raw and bleeding as anyone else’s. You are as confused, overwhelmed, and exhausted as anyone could be. You feel like part of you, half of you, all of you is ripped away.
Yet at the same time, sometimes in the very same instant, you have hope—a hope rising from somewhere deep in your soul that even death cannot take away or even tarnish. It’s a hope that says, “I know that I know that I know this is not the end,” even when everything around you looks and feels like it’s the end. It’s a hope that believes everything your senses are telling you in the darkest moments is not the whole story.
Too many people, I think, imagine that faith in Jesus should prevent or quickly remove the pain of grief. They think if you truly are a believer, your grief will not be a difficult journey and your wounds will magically just not hurt very much. That’s simply not true. The hope and faith we have as believers does not lessen the pain. We hurt just as much! Sometimes I think we may even hurt more; God’s love has softened our hearts to the point that we care and love more, so the pain of death is especially excruciating.
But faith provides us something to go along with the pain. The hope we have is not diminished by the pain of grief. I’m not sure anyone who is not walking through the dark valley of grief can fully appreciate how it’s possible to experience both overwhelming pain and irrepressible hope at the same time. Ambushes of grief and ambushes of hope can sometimes chase each other like waves crashing on the shore of your soul. Hope does not lessen the pain, and pain cannot dim the hope.
An acquaintance of mine experienced the death of her husband about three years before Al passed away. When she learned of my grief, she wrote me a surprisingly short note: “Nobody but Jesus can help you now.” To some that may sound callous, but it was perhaps the kindest and most understanding thing she could have said. Yes, it’s absolutely vital that you reach out and accept support from others on your journey through this dark valley, and we’ll talk about that later in this book. But pain is perhaps the loneliest thing in the world. No other human being can fully “go there” with you.
But Jesus can. He’s the only One who truly can. And He wants to.
Your faith may be shaken with the death of your loved one, and allowing Jesus to “go there” with you may seem impossible right now. You may have some deep questions to wrestle over with God as you move along this journey. You may feel angry at Him. None of that is a surprise to Him or makes Him love you any less. His shoulders are big enough to carry you regardless of how long or convoluted your grief journey is or may become. He’s still inviting you to “go there” and to allow Him to go there with you.
“God with us” is a powerful concept. The angel who talked with Joseph about the coming birth of Jesus said, “They shall call His name Immanuel,” which means, “God with us” (Matt. 1:23, MEV). That’s who He is. It’s why He came—to be with you even in your grief.
Taking God with you on this journey may not immediately seem comforting. What if you’re in a place where any hope you had seems completely obscured by your grief? What if your faith is hanging on by a thread, if it’s even there at all? What if your relationship with God has never been all that close, and now you don’t sense any solid ground beneath you holding you up? I hope this book will be a helpful guide through the valley of grief, whatever your previous experience as a believer may have been. For the remainder of this chapter let’s look at some of the things that could be keeping you from feeling or seeing Him, and how can you take God with you on this journey, whether or not you’ve gone through anything with Him in the past.
Your beliefs about God and grief
What you believe about God will certainly impact your experience of grief. Your head knowledge about God isn’t nearly as impactful on this journey as what your heart deeply believes about Him. The experience of grief may expose some of your beliefs about God that you had not previously realized were there. Do you suspect He’s not really all that interested in what you’re going through? Do you see Him as a heavenly “bad guy” who is using your loved one’s death to punish you? Do you think that if He truly cared about the overwhelming pain you’re experiencing, He would do something to take it away quickly? Perhaps you think He’s not as strong as many people seem to think and is essentially powerless to do anything about pain and evil, especially your pain.
I imagine that must have been how Mary and Martha felt when they met Jesus four days after their brother, Lazarus, died. They cried out, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21, 32, MEV). Or to put it in a language many of us use today, “Why?”
We’ll talk more about dealing with anger at God in a later chapter. For now let me encourage you to make the choice to take God with you on this journey anyway. Don’t ignore or discount your questions; they’re a reasonable response to your experience of grief. But realize also that as you keep walking through this dark valley, your heart and mind will change. You will come to understand new things and experience new feelings. Make the decision to keep your troubled thoughts as questions instead of making them final statements. In addition to other things you will learn on this journey, you may discover some new things about God as well. Remain open to that.
If your belief is strong that God is good all the time, you have a touch point already that will help you during this journey. But your mind, body, emotions, and life are still traumatized. God understands that. This journey will change your faith; it’s possible for that change to make your faith stronger. Don’t neglect to do the work of grief. When you begin from a place of trust in God, He can use this journey through grief in ways you cannot yet imagine. He weeps with you. He will not leave you alone.
Intellectual instead of heart-level faith
Perhaps your previous life as a Christian has been a cerebral experience, pretty much characterized by statements of truth and trying to live a “good” lifestyle. The overwhelming emotions associated with grief may seem to be in a completely different category than your faith has ever had to address before. How can a faith that lived in your head help you now when you feel as though you can’t breathe and your heart has been ripped apart?
Throughout Scripture we see God’s friends bringing their deepest emotions to Him. Jesus experienced all the strong feelings you and I do. He does not want your relationship with Him to be only an intellectual and behavioral one; He wants to connect with you in the feeling and emotional areas of life also. He’s all about the heart, after all. And what could touch the heart at a deeper level than grief?
If you’ve never allowed your emotions to flow out in God’s presence, this is the time to learn to do that. In church, or even better, while alone in your bedroom or outside in nature, just start talking to Him. Let yourself weep in His presence. God treasures the tears of His children. If you need to yell or scream, do that. Don’t put a filter on your words or feelings. Be you—the grieving, confused, tired, hurting you—in His presence.
After a period of weeping, yelling, or whatever else, you may feel empty, exhausted, spent. When you do, just stay there. Don’t rush out of God’s presence; stay there in the quiet. Sometimes you may not feel anything. Other times you may sense God gently saying, “I’m here.” Occasionally you may hear Him speak something more specific or direct to your heart. Give Him that chance. Stay there long enough for your soul to get quiet, and allow Jesus’ sweet presence through His Spirit to minister to you.
Not every time you pray will you leave with a clear sense of emotional comfort. But when you keep returning to His presence over and over, God will speak to you.
God hasn’t been a big part of your life.
Taking God with you on this journey through grief may seem like a foreign idea. Perhaps you’ve only thought about faith occasionally, and you’re a Christian because, well, it’s been easier to think of yourself that way because of your family, work environment, or whatever. You know a little about what a Christian is supposed to do or believe, but having a relationship with God has never been an especially big part of your life.
This experience of grief opens parts of your soul you probably didn’t know existed. You may feel desperate for something, and you wonder if maybe God has some answers you hadn’t seriously considered before.
Let me be one to affirm that God does have the answers, even for your grief. My saying so may not mean very much to you right now, and that’s OK. But if my faith and that of others who have taken God along as we walk this grief journey can give you even a tiny measure of hope, then borrow a little of our faith for right now. Those of us who have chosen to take God with us have found that He doesn’t remove the pain, not yet anyway. But He makes a difference, and I want that difference for you.
Let me suggest you give God a chance. That’s perhaps why you picked up this book. Your hurting heart can provide an opportunity to connect with God in a very special way.
How to Walk Forward
Think of this as a guidebook. It won’t provide all the answers to your why questions, but it will provide some framework for you to wrestle with those questions as you do your grief work. Intentionally devoting time and energy to working through the thoughts, emotions, memories, and challenges grief brings is hard; that’s why it’s called grief work. This book will point out some things you may experience as you journey through the valley of grief, and there will be some suggestions on how to do the work of grief along the way. You’ll also be invited to think about how this journey may impact your faith and relationship with God.
Here are a few brief and important suggestions to keep in mind as you move forward.
• Take your time. Remember, there are no medals for speed in getting through the valley of grief. Don’t worry about how long it’s taking you. Just keep taking one small step at a time.
• Decide to do the work of grief. Remember, your healing will depend on what you choose to do during the time that passes. Take a few minutes each day, or perhaps a few hours each week, to focus on doing specific grief work. We’ll talk about what that might look like in a later chapter.
• If the Bible means anything to you at all, make reading it part of your daily routine. Your mind may not be able to grasp much of what you read right now. It may seem empty. But put a few scriptures from God’s Word in your mind every day. If nothing else, open to Psalms and read just a couple verses.
• Talk to God about your journey. God is patient, and there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to pray at this time. But I encourage you to talk to God every day, even if it’s only for a moment. If nothing else just tell Him how you feel today and ask Him to keep walking with you on this journey.
Yes, grief is an unwelcome intruder that has launched you on a journey through a dark and confusing valley. This isn’t something you ever would have chosen, but you are not the first person to walk this path, and you will not be the last. Let me and others who have gone through this journey offer some touch points, some reassurance, and most of all, some hope.
The dark valley will not last forever. Just keep walking.
At the end of each chapter you’ll find a couple suggestions for how to apply the material to your grief journey. Your mind is likely struggling to think clearly, and these simple steps may help you find focus and hope.
1. Get a journal that you can use during your journey. Spend a few minutes writing about what your loved one meant to you.
2. In your journal write a few sentences as a prayer to God. Let Him know how you are feeling right now—angry, sad, lonely, confused, or whatever.