Hope :: Grief Meets Faith

I was planning for last week’s post to be a recap of the year and for it to be the last post of the year since I’ll be traveling both this week and next. However, with it being finals week, no post got written. And here I am, with a completely different post. No recap in sight.

If you’ve been reading my blog since 2020, you’ll know I lost my dad in December of that year. Actually, this very week of December 2020.

Yeah, it’s not been a great week.

I want to preface my talking about grief here with the disclaimers that I am not a doctor in any way whatsoever. I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, or counselor. So please do not take anything I say in this post as medical advice. Because, yeah, not me!

What I plan to do with this post is offer you a bit of hope in the middle of your own grieving. Especially if you, like me, struggle at this time of year.

I’m not going to talk about the stages or cycles of grief, because it doesn’t really happen that way for me. I’ll be fine, and then it all hits at once.

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On Sunday, the 17th, I was at work. I had been unaware of the date. Honestly, the days all blur together anymore. I had gone to church that morning, and the pastor gave a phenomenal message about how Jesus is our Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6), not to be confused with God the Father, but rather He’s a stand-in for earthly fathers since He came to earth and took on flesh to be with us. You can watch the sermon here! (The actual sermon starts at 38:27.)

Anyway, when I pulled a bakery item, I had to date it, which meant I glanced at the day’s date. I thought the 17th was Monday. It wasn’t. And right there in the back room of Target, my entire body shut down and tears sprang to my eyes and I lost all joy. I couldn’t ignore the date any longer.

It took a few minutes of deep breathing, but I was able to get my emotions back under control again. And I made it through the rest of my shift. I wasn’t as peppy anymore. Several people asked me what happened. But I just shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it.

When I got home from work, I gave Kota his usual treat. And then I fell apart. I mean gasping sobs. It felt like I was back in 2020.

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As I sat down with my prayer journal, I thanked God that He was with me in the middle of it, and I told Him I didn’t know how I would have made it through the grief without Him.

Then I realized: there are so many people who don’t know Him who try to navigate grief alone. And I feel like many of the people who read this blog might be people who are grieving alone but who are seeking someone or something that understands their grief and who will walk alongside them.

Friend, you don’t have to keep looking. There is a God in heaven who loves you and has been seeking you out this whole time.

Scripture tells us that He leaves the 99 to find the 1, and you are that 1.

You might be saying, “What does this God know about grief, though?”

Jesus had a great many followers, but he also had friends. Some of those friends included Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. John 11 tells us the story of Lazarus’s death; how Mary and Martha sent for Jesus and requested His help because Lazarus was deathly ill and how Jesus put off going to help. He knew putting off going was going to bring glory to the kingdom of God, but when He arrived and found that his friend had been in the grave for four days, He still wept. He knew what was coming (that He was going to raise Lazarus from death), but He still wept.

Going still further, if we follow the rest of Jesus’s life, we come to His final days where He was betrayed, abandoned by His friends and followers, beaten, and hung on a cross to die before being laid in a tomb. He was fully God and fully man. In order for Him to die, God the Father had to fully separate Himself from Him. Can you imagine? Can you imagine how God felt watching His only Son die so that you and I could be forgiven for our sins?

Yes, just as Jesus knew that Lazarus would live again, God knew that He would give life back to Jesus, but that doesn’t make the pain any less.

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Even when you didn’t know God, He knew and loved you, and He watched over you. His heart broke every time yours did. His love poured out for you every time you needed Him.

If you’ve been seeking Him, even without knowing quite what you’ve been seeking, all you need to do is turn to Him. He’s been waiting for you this whole time with open arms.

You don’t need to grieve alone.

Being able to turn to God in my grief has given me so much hope and allows me to breathe through the pain every single time. May you find that same hope and peace.

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