Over time, I have learned that grief is not the issue. Death is.
In his book Mourning into Dancing, Walter Wangerin wrote: “Each griever’s experience will be unique. In the midst of their pain, they may feel terribly alone and confused. And their suffering could convince them that grief is the root of all evil. But it is not. Death is evil. Not grief.” (208-9)
Grief is the intense emotional suffering we feel after a loss. Most of my grief has been through the devastating loss of my father, mother, and sister. Their suffering was extreme, and I still remember every detail of watching their bodies deteriorate. But I take comfort in knowing that they are now healed and rejoicing in the presence of Jesus.
Two weeks ago, we had the privilege of honoring them by placing tombstones at their graves. It was a sad occasion, but I was grateful to be surrounded by family and friends as we prayed and celebrated their lives.
I have never been able to escape death. It has come knocking more than once in my life. Dianne Langberg argues in her book Suffering and the Heart of God that death is “an uninvited, unappreciated, unwanted, hated, feared, denied, raged against guest.” (194) We do not want it. We often fear it. We cannot control it. And we hate our helplessness. Some of us work hard to ignore death. We don’t want to talk about it. We don’t want to face its slow destruction of our physical beings. But it comes to us and to the people we love.
Standing at their gravesites, I remembered vividly all the days they had passed and the experience of staring death in the eye. I remembered the void their absence left. In those moments when death stares us in the face and we cannot look away, I am so grateful that we can look back with the one who both weeps with us and stares it down: Jesus Christ.
Hand in hand with Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), I have found comfort in the One who wept at the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35) and who put death on notice (John 11:25). It is in Him that I daily lean on the One who is both the man of sorrows acquainted with all grief (Isaiah 53:3) and anointed with gladness (Hebrews 1:9). I have learned to lean on what Tim Keller calls Christ’s ministry of truth and a ministry of tears at different grieving times. He says, “Sometimes you need more of the bracing truth; you need to be shaken by a loving friend who says, ‘Wake up and look around you.’ Other times you really just need somebody to weep with you. Sometimes to lay truth on people when they’re grieved is absolutely wrong, but other times just to weep with them and not tell them the truth is equally wrong. None of us has the temperament or the patience or the insight to give people exactly what they need all the time. Some of us have personalities that are prone to confront even when sympathy is called for, and others of us are the opposite. But Jesus Christ is never strong when he should be tender or tender when he should be strong. Yet it isn’t just that he is the perfect, wonderful counselor. He is the truth itself come in tears. He is deity incarnate in the flesh.” (Encounters with Jesus, 51)
As I stood by the gravesites I was also glad that God gave me people to face the reality of death with. I was blown away by the support of my home church and family who came from different parts of the country to dedicate the tombstones. Though some say that grief shared is grief diminished, I believe that when grief is shared sometimes it doesn’t diminish but it strengthens one to face the foe of death with less despair. It was refreshing to stand beside people who had seen the pain my loved ones had gone through, acknowledging death’s blow but yet still giving delicate, attentive, minimalist responses to the suffering that heal without pretending to fix, explain, or explain away the realities of the situation. ( Catherine M Wallace, Life, Death, Poetry, and Pastoral Care.)
The journey with grief continues but I am glad God hasn’t left me to face it alone.