Grief

Although grief is something we wish we could avoid, it happens to us all. And while there is not an "How to face Grief" manual that tells us what to do or how to handle it, there are those among us who have walked the path and who are willing to reach out. This is actually 3 articles but they're not tool long and worth the time...

 The experience starts here...

Having recently gone through the devastating experience of having our beautiful 32-year-old daughter die, completely unexpectedly, of a pulmonary embolism, I was determined from Day One (January 11, when she was found dead in her home in Durham, N.C.) to be open to whatever positive thing there might be to glean from this.  I cling by my fingernails to the promise of Romans 8:28 that “God works all things together for good for those who love him….”
Thoughts on grieving...
When a person suffers the devastating loss of a loved one, you should — however well-intentioned you might be — keep your mouth shut.  Or at the very least, you should think long and hard before you say anything.  Here are some of the things I recently heard that did not help, and frankly were not true.
1)  “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.”
2)  “You’ll get over it soon.”
3)  “Sorry about your lost loved one.”
4)  “Well, at least you still have your son.”
5)  “God will make up for this with a twofold blessing.”

The hope of the grieving:
What does it mean to grieve, then, as one who has hope?  It means we grieve with one eye forever fixed on the eschatological horizon.  It means we grieve knowing that resurrection will reverse Death.  It means we grieve knowing that Death will not have the last word about us.  Life will.  Elsewhere, Paul reminds us of the old saying “Who hopes for what they already have?”  Just so.  The hope to which he refers is not something we possess now in a fully realized form.  While I may have comfort now, and solace now, and peace now,  none of this is my hope.