Grief: A Violent Carrying Forward
Grief is unavoidable. There are times when our grief carries the weight of our actions. We made a mistake, and we see the consequences for our responsibility as life’s scales of justice balance themselves out.
Grief may feel like a climax before the falling action of a life lost to time's natural movement. We are each human; we each come from the dust to one day return to it. Grief is painful, but there is an understandable progression and causal relationship between an event and our sadness.
Then there are times when bad things happen for no good reason. An injustice to the sanctity of humanness occurs that feels more like Hell than a divine intervention from a Holy being.
How can a Good God allow for these horrible things to happen? How is the character of God aligned with suffering without reason?
The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”
C.S. Lewis, after the loss of his wife
The character of Job experienced ravenous loss without any justification or reasoning. He pleads, “Teach me, and I will be silent; and show me how I have done wrong (NASB 6:24)”. Job was looking for reasoning for his grief. He pleads with God to look at him, face to face, and provide him justification for the loss of his family, dreams, and finances.
God does not meet Job’s questioning with anger. He also does not meet Job with a cheap answer or reparation. He meets Job with kindness and presence. Grief does not allow for answers to suffering. Answers alone would not be enough to blanket the expanse of grief after loss. There is no way out of it but walking through it.
In his book As Long As You Need, hospital chaplain J.S. Park describes grief as a violent carrying forward of that which you grieve into the present. Leaving loss in the past is bypassing the goodness of having loved and cared enough to experience loss. As much as we may hope to leave behind the pain of grief, we are also leaving behind a part of ourselves.
Humans are meaning makers. We each are made up of stories that, in some way, shape who we are. We look for meaning in grief because redemption feels better than emotional overwhelm. Bypassing is an easier route than sitting with the discomfort of pain and questioning.
Maybe you’ve heard one of these from in the midst of your grief:
It gets better.
Everything happens for a reason.
Everything has a purpose.
God is testing you.
This is part of your testimony.
This will make you stronger.
God does not provide Job with meaning. Instead, He asks, “Have you ever commanded the morning and made the dawn know its place? (NASB 38:12). God does not provide meaning in suffering. He provides presence. He allows Job to honestly show the rawness of his humanity from the peaks of his anger to the depths of his despair. He was with Job in the ugliness of grief. He stayed in the discomfort of questioning and anger.
The story of the Gospel is one of redemption. But we are often too quick to look for meaning in our brokenness to allow ourselves to feel the weight of grief that our bodies, minds, and nervous systems need to feel. We bypass grief on our way to the cross. We need to sit with the despair that there was death. But through death, there is life and salvation.
A kind and compassionate other who can sit with us in our grief can help the journey feel less isolating and overwhelming. Psalm 34:18 tells us that God is near to the brokenhearted. He is present in our overwhelm. He is present in our anger. He is present in our questioning.
Do you feel alone and isolated in your grief? Or maybe you have left part of yourself behind to try to move forward, but you are left with emotional and physical symptoms from fragmentation.
You are not alone. Your story matters. What needs to be unearthed or met with kindness so that you can violently carry it forward with you into the present? Whatever this may be, we would love to walk through it with you. You are Kingly.