No one understands the depths of grief like our Lord. Shortly after creation, we rebelled against His ways, ending with the need of death of His creation. The consequence of sin is death (Romans 6:23). This was not what God had wanted for us, but because of our gift of free will, we can choose to follow His ways or not. That is such a hard one to wrap one’s head around! Why would we choose to fight against our creator, our maker?

Nevertheless, we do, and death is part of our everyday lives. Death is the extinction of life. That definition has a profoundness; to experience death, one must first live. Throughout the Bible, the word meaning physical death is mentioned over 300 times; at least 50 of those times, death is referred to as sleep. I hold fast to the fact that death is purely sleep for those who follow Jesus.

One of my first memories is of seeing my grandma in a casket at her funeral in Ohio. Throughout my life, I have had many people die in my life even at a young age. I celebrated my grandfather with family around his deathbed, but grief didn’t hit me as hard as it has since my most recent experience. I had known my mother-in-law since I was sixteen when my husband and I started dating. Over the years, we grew close. I tease my husband that he married me because I remind him of his mother; we both have a silly side to us. Recently I was her hospice caregiver for two months as she walked through a lung infection which was a superbug and a fast-progressing blood cancer. Both of those diseases took her in under a week of finding out about the severity of her cancer.

When Mary, the mother of Jesus, wept at the bottom of the cross when she watched her son die before her, her grief had to be so apparent. Grieving in the Old and New Testament times consisted of tearing clothes, putting ashes over themselves, and wailing loudly. Jesus was filled with great sorrow before Judas brought the guards to take Him away; ^“They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.  “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” (Mark 14:32-34). Jesus felt such deep sorrow that He experienced distress and depression like we do.

Grief is an individual experience, and people respond to loss differently. There are physical reactions such as depression, stress, panic attacks, inability to eat or overeat, muscle tension, loss of sleep or sleeping too much, emotional highs and lows, and feeling like something is physically wrong, which causes you to go see a doctor. Grief is complicated, and there is no on-off switch. It takes time.

After my mother-in-law passed, my dad, who married my mom when I was a young teen, passed away. Once again, I was knocked over and whittled with grief. I am getting through it by completely trusting and leaning into the Lord. There is no other way for me. I am nothing without Jesus. The feelings, emotions, the gut-wrenching can’t swallow grief can not be brushed under a rug or poo-pooed and ignored. They have to be felt and worked through; why? Because without working through it and coming out of it, you will be lost too.

Are you grieving well?

Are you at a stand still and don’t know how to move forward in your grief?

Consider these:

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelations 21:4).

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3).

-Rachel