Job said he wanted to die (job 3); he wished he never was born (job 7: 6-9,13-16) and that he despised his life.  

CS Lewis said:  “ ..where is God? ….go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. ..Why is He… so very absent in time of trouble?

“… He reminded me the same thing happened to Christ: “Why hast thou forsaken me?” [But] Does that make it easier to understand?

“Not that I am… in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. 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.” (Chapter 1 in A Grief Observed)

Jesus said:”My god, why have you forsaken me?”

The loss of a child creates a spiritual crossroads. Those who have believed are asking whether there is a God. And if so, what kind of God can He be. Unbelievers are asking questions too.

I knew a mother who did not believe in life after death. But she loved hearing me talk about the Life Jesus has prepared for us in His house beyond the grave. She wanted to believe. After the death of her daughter, she felt drawn to that hope.  She saw various little evidences of that life that she took to be messages from her daughter. But, I’m sorry to report, she never took Jesus into her life which is how we find our way to that real hope of the home He is preparing for His children.

For those of us who believe what the Scriptures say – that God is good, wise and powerful – may have a very hard time bringing those truths into some correlation to other truths in our lives. It may seem impossible that those things are true and also that your loved child has died.

Job’s process was to ask his questions – loud and long. He kept asking. And, I note, God listened and did not strike him with lightening! Asking your genuine questions to the Father is not going to make you unacceptable to Him. On the other hand, if you have questions but don’t put them before the Father, if you start talking behind His back, so to speak, or complaining to others about Him, that may not be so good for you. Job rants on for chapters. His so-called friends give him all sorts of bad interpretations of what God does and why. Job somehow is not encouraged by their well intentioned but bad theology! Eventually, and I believe it is perfect timing, God steps up and has finished listening. Now He begins teaching. He shares His own heart in this matter of Job’s life. For once, Job listens. Then Job is humbled. Job realizes the proper arrangement between him and the Father. And finally, Job says, “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5). Wow, Job gets to know God, the Father, much better and more intimately than before.  

Jesus’ “process” was to come to the point where He said, “not my will but thine.” There is trust! Jesus decided that though He asked to be relieved of the cross, He accepted the Father’s decision to have Him go through with it all the way to death. He yielded to the Father’s choice and decision, no matter what.

Grief is a spiritual crossroads for each of us. Jesus humbled Himself and accepted His Father’s will for him. Job expressed his genuine questions and came much closer to God. C.S. Lewis also continued to draw near His heavenly Father. My friend did not. What about you? Are you leaning into Him, questions and all? Or are you turning away from Him because He seems far away. That locked door Lewis pictured, that distance you picture, are illusions. He IS with you, listening and waiting for the right time to show Himself to you in love and comfort. Keep asking. Keep knocking. The Lord in near. He has promised.

Not only are you grieving mentally, physically and socially, you are grieving emotionally. Maybe I didn’t need to say this at all because you already knew it.

In an earlier blog I mentioned that Grief is a Chaos of emotion. It’s chaos. It’s unpredictable. It’s a whirl wind or a tilt-a-whirl of emotion. There are waves that threaten to overwhelm you, like big surf at the beach. There are dark days and heavy nights when the “shadow of death” is almost oppressive. There are tears, fear, anger, sadness, regret, disappointment, etc. I can’t even name them all. There is a long missing of the person who died. 

The anger can be directed at the one who died or at the One who didn’t stop this death.  It can be focused on others because of some choices they made that contributed to death or didn’t contribute to life. The anger can be directed at medical professionals, or other drivers, or –you name it! There are logical targets and there can be targets for that anger that are completely irrational. Yet that person may receive some of your anger. Grief is like that, reactionary rather than thoughtful and rational. 

These emotions are in a stew within the grieving person and on a short fuse! Grieving parents are often fragile –if you look at them the wrong way, they break down. Or they may be volatile – if you look at them the wrong way they may blow up! Think about a pair of parents, whose child recently died. They lost the same child at the same time and they both feel this chaos of emotion, both with short fuses. In any household, any couple, there could be several breakdowns and blowups when that stew of grief emotions gets stirred. The best way of coping with this within a couple is grace. Each parent can graciously decide to give the other one a bit of repentance on the one side and, on the other, the benefit of understanding that their grief is chaotic and sudden reactions sometimes just break out. 

If you are feeling anything like I have described, you are normal. There is some comfort in knowing this is normal. If people have felt this way in the past and if most of them survived, then I can survive this turmoil too! Truly, there is hope here. Others before us have survived.

But there is more. Jesus wept. Jesus grieved when he went to visit his friends, Lazarus’ family. He saw the family and friends grieving and he felt their sorrow.  It was said of Him, “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” (John 11:33) Jesus had real emotions when He thought about the death of his friend and about the grief His other friends were experiencing. He didn’t suppress or hide the emotions. I think He feels your grief and sadness too. As He wept for his grieving friends, He weeps for you too. He knows your heart hurts and He knows how much.

Looking at the context a bit more, He knew Lazarus was really dead but only temporarily. He knew He would raise Lazarus from death in just a few minutes. Yet He wept. He wept for the grievers. He wept that death ever entered into His creation and into our lives. I am so comforted by Jesus’ tears in this situation. They show me God feels my pain. They also give me permission to shed a few tears. They do not represent a lack of faith. It shows there is sorrow at the end of every precious human life. Jesus knew all, knew that Life is just around the corner, and wept anyway. Tears are part of a proper response to death.

Your child died. His best friend didn’t. How now do you relate to his friend’s parents? It is different now. And so are all your other relationships. Your own best friends may be great with the new you who is learning to walk through the “valley of the shadow of death” or not so much. Some of your old friends may not make it into the category of new friends. It’s true. Some people just can’t stay with a grieving person. Some people can’t stand to be around so much pain. I’m not sure why. But I have some guesses: it hurts them to see you in so much pain, they can’t deal with the thought of death, they don’t know what to say. (Who does, after all!) These are all just excuses. But you really don’t have to spend the energy that you don’t have, to try to maintain a friendship with someone who can’t be with you where you are in life. You may have to just let some friendships go.

People with whom you have just a nodding acquaintance – like the grocery store clerk, the post man, even some of your neighbors, even some people at your church – may avoid you. God has recorded this very behavior in Psalm 31:11-12,  a psalm of David.

Because of all my enemies,
       I am the utter contempt of my neighbors;
       I am a dread to my friends—
       those who see me on the street flee from  me.

 I am forgotten by them as though I were dead;     

 I have become like broken pottery.

As they did in the days of David, people are still crossing the street, or going the other way in a grocery aisle to avoid you. I’m sorry.  

Relationships are different in your extended family too. Some of them are probably just like the people I have already described. Or they may be the ones who are giving you the most pressure to “get back to normal!” or to get on with life! Or to get over it! Again, I’m sorry. The general population just does not get how deep and wide and painful and life-changing grief is. Because of this lack of understanding, it is lonely.

It’s also lonely because only you lost what you lost. Even in a couple when the husband and the wife lost the same child, they lost some different qualities in their unique relationships with that child. In some ways, the dad’s relationship with the child was different from the mom’s. In subtle ways, they lost different things. Add to the uniqueness of the loss, the fact that each one is a unique griever, and their grief will be different! It’s a fact: only you can grieve your grief. In your couple, try to encourage one another; try to give one another as much as you can, in your present state of depletion. But know, you can’t take away their grief and they can’t solve your’s either.

In a couple, different things are going to help heal each of you. In every couple, one partner likes to look at the pictures, and the other just can’t. I know a couple who shared that one was energized by being with people and the other needed a lot of solitude. This great couple consciously chose to give one another as much as they could of what the other needed. The wife who needed solitude took as much opportunity to be with people with her husband as she could bear. The husband took as many walks in the wood with his wife as he could bear. And each gave the other permission to be in the context that helped them most, even without the spouse.  

It’s lonely because people don’t understand grief and they avoid you. It’s lonely because friendships change. It’s lonely because only you lost what you lost and only you can grieve your grief. It’s lonely because generally in this time in history, kids grow up and most parents have not experienced the loss of a child. In many ways, you are alone. But there is One who has promised to be with you, always.

Jesus said “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mat 28:20) God often promised in the Old Testament “Do not be afraid, I am with you” (Isa 43:5 is one example). The Holy Spirit was given to be with you: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—.” ( John 14:16)

Psalm 31:1-5 talks about that intimacy this way:   

  In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge; …

 Turn your ear to me,
       come quickly to my rescue;
       be my rock of refuge,
       a strong fortress to save me.

 Since you are my rock and my fortress,
       for the sake of your name lead and guide me.

 Free me from the trap that is set for me,
       for you are my refuge.

 Into your hands I commit my spirit;

 Lean into Him because He is with you. Grief is lonely, but you are not alone.  

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
       and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

One mom said to me “I never knew you could hurt this much!” That’s how painful it was, greater than she had ever experienced before.  I have always thought this statement was not quite complete. I think the rest of it is: “… and live to tell about it.”

There is pain and a heaviness in the chest, as if a truck were parked on it. There is the deep breathing and sighing, because of that heaviness. It feels like you can’t catch your breath. There is the GI upset, the tightness in the gut and the loss of appetite. You may have to make adjustments in how you eat. I ate kinder gentler foods, easier to digest foods, comfort foods.

There is the emptiness in your arms. The need to touch your child didn’t die when they did. To stroke their hair, to hold their hand. There is the need to hug your child, to smell their skin, to feel their lashes in butterfly kisses. There is the need to hear their voice. All this need to physically connect with them leads to physical pain in your body since none of these things can be accomplished.

There is fatigue too, because of all this constant pain and all the work to catch your breath. It takes energy and determination to think a thought, and after that, you are physically fatigued. Grief messes with your sleep patterns and with your eating habits. So of course you are fatigued after not sleeping enough. Each of us will experience some sleep issues. For some it’s laying down that is most difficult. Your mind runs and you can’t stop thinking about the one who died, or your loss, or your grief. For others, it’s hardest when they wake in the morning. Sleep has been an escape but all the pain and loss come rushing back when the mind starts waking up. Job describes the hoped for blessings of sleep in Job 7:13-15  “When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine.” What he found were the curses of sleep. Sleep is sometimes the one and at other times the other.

Regarding eating, there are 2 kinds of people when under stress: those who eat and those who can’t eat. I’m an eater; anyone who can see me knows that. But I know there truly are people who can’t eat when their heart is broken. For both kinds of people, you need to determine in your own mind to eat at least one healthy thing each day. Small baby steps along the way help with the healing.

This weekend I met a young husband whose wife died of breast cancer. Just 6 weeks passed from diagnosis to her death. He mentioned that he is surprised how much physical pain his emotions produce. Like I mentioned, the categories are invented conveniences but you are one whole being. The pain of grief is in every cell.

So, there is pain in the skin and in the bones and in the heart. The Lord knows this. In His word, He records some of these same physical expressions of grief:   “my bones are in agony, my soul is in anguish… I am worn out from groaning, all night long I flood my bed with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow…“ (Psalm 6:2-3,6-7) This Lord, who invites you to pour out your heart, knows the pain in your grief too. He is not surprised and He does care.