Lately, the experience of grief has been on my mind. Grief: “A deep and poignant (emotional) distress caused by bereavement (loss, death, passing away…)” (Merriam-Webster). Some synonyms that try to capture the weight and even the torture of grief are: sorrow, woe, and anguish.
The concept of grief is difficult to understand, difficult to categorize. This is because grief looks so different from one individual to the next. The circumstances that brought on the grief are different, the types of loss are different, the family ties or ties of friendship to the lost loved ones are all different person to person. People cope with and work through grief in many different ways as well. It can be incredibly hard to understand the way a grieving person behaves, and to know how to effectively come alongside of them when they are going through a situation we’ve never experienced or even conceived of before. It can be hard and even impossible to know what to say, what to do, how to help.
From what I have witnessed of grief, I would say this is especially true to the unique grief a parent goes through after the loss of a child. Someone who has lost their spouse to death is a widow or widower. A child who has lost parents to death is called an orphan. But there is no word for the parent, broken and burdened, who tenderly and heartbreakingly lays a precious child in the grave.
Perhaps no word can carry the weight of such an experience. Perhaps the experience of this grief unique to parents is too terrible to be acknowledged with words. Our words often, if not always, fall short in bringing even a bit of comfort, lifting even one ounce from the grieving parent’s shoulders. Grief is ominous that way… it is so large and consuming that it demands to be felt. If grief can be understood as all the unexpressed love that we suddenly are unable to give to our loved ones, then the substance of a parent’s grief is a lifetime of unexpressed love for their dear child. A lifetime filled with all the moments - big of course, but especially the smallest - in which that parent would have expressed their deep love for their child. First steps and birthdays, first days of school and baseball games, Christmas mornings, graduations, weddings, watching them become parents themselves… all these big moments a parent imagines and looks forward to and prays for suddenly will never be.
And those are just the big moments… surely even more aching must be missing the smallest of moments a parent would show that child love - for the sheer quantity of those moments is incalculable. A thousand moments of every single day… pausing in a doorway before waking a sleeping child for school, setting a plate full of warm breakfast before them. Wiping little hands, little mouths after a meal, hunting for that lost shoe, folding another load of their laundry. Helping them escape a snow-banked yard with their car only to pray for their safety for the same amount of time their school commute will last. Hours of homework help at the kitchen table, splashing in a summer pool, watching that bike speed off down the trail, cleaning and bandaging another scraped knee. Thoughts, actions, concerns, words, prayers. All this time that a parent dedicates to loving their child is immeasurable; the list could go on to fill volumes of books. The immensity simply cannot be framed with words, and therefore the grief of that unexpressed love when the child has been lost to death cannot be captured with words either. So immense, so encompassing, so overwhelming is the loss.
I’ve wondered before how parents who have lost a child can go on living. “How do they even breathe, when surely the weight of their grief is heavier than a thousand oceans, every drop pressing in on their lungs and suffocating” (‘All Things’ Post). Understandably, they must feel that no one else in their lives could possibly and truly comprehend their anguish.
The Devil certainly knows this and uses it too. He knows that grief will isolate the bereaved. He knows it will cause them to feel utterly alone, even if they are surrounded by well-meaning friends and family members trying to bring comfort. He knows it will push them to question God’s love and presence, especially in the dark, torturous hours of the night… when sleep evades the racing mind. As the sun sinks below the horizon, Satan must be wearing a malicious sneer, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of the lies he can more easily plant during those blackest hours. The night, the darkness… the most ideal setting for his type of work. A heavy black curtain weighted with regret, aching emptiness, the ‘why’ question. Agony. Torment. Distress. Sorrow that ends in weeping.
And what a perfect combination of deceit he works with – using tragedy to make one believe that brothers and sisters in Christ could never understand the pain, could never comfort; and that God has abandoned me too. It’s an age-old tactic of Satan’s actually, one that has even been recorded in the book of Job. He knows that friends and family will feel utterly incapable of helping. We are left feeling that grief – especially grief as heavy as a parent’s – can never be soothed. We don’t know what to say… we can’t come up with any words at all, much less the “right words”.
We long to take the pain away… to erase every trace of agony in the hearts of dear friends, family members. But such is not the life of the child of God here on this earth, one void of grief and suffering. Such is not the power of brothers and sisters in Christ, to remove pains and burdens. This life is filled with suffering, in His Name’s sake. Not one of God’s children escapes the turmoil of this sinful world.
Only He can fully take the pain away with His victory on the cross. Only He could endure the wrath so that we would not have to… so that we could instead claim His victory and escape the pain and agony of Hell. Only He can truly comfort, truly save. Only He can take an immeasurable amount of grief and turn it into immeasurable joy, turn mourning into dancing. So that by His scars, we are healed. So that by His endurance, we by grace are given the strength to endure this life… to endure the night.
So often the night is long, excruciatingly long. The black hours drag on and on, and it feels as if the sun will never rise. The agony causes morning to feel so far away. The joy that softly dawns with the morning sun feels as though it will never come. The night could persist for weeks, months, years even. It could even be that the night lasts your entire lifetime.
Perhaps morning will only come upon the threshold to Heaven. Perhaps the joy will enfold you only when you finally open your eyes to Heavenly light in eternity, brighter than the sun, His glory banishing the night. It will shine so brightly that there will be no darkness, no agony, no torment, no sorrow, no weeping.
This is the relief we press on toward with every step, even when our burdened feet barely drag along the rocky path through the valley of the shadow of death. This is the hope we bring to the bereaved, knowing that while we cannot take their pain away, God still calls us to come alongside and bear one another’s burdens. Our words may fall short, but His never will. We may not know exactly what they need, but God does. In fact, He knows every detail and facet of the pain in His grieving child’s heart, perfectly, without missing a thing. So we fervently pray that those who grieve will deeply feel the comfort of His promises, especially during the darkness of the night. We pray that they know the Lord is their loving shepherd, that He knows every single need. We pray that they feel His presence, feel His sure goodness and mercy following their every step through the darkness of that valley. And we pray for strength, compassion, understanding, and empathy when we visit the grieving. So that even just for a little while, we come beside them to push with all our might on that heavy burden they carry. We simply embrace them, weep with them, feel that grief with them. We just sit with them through the night.
And through it all, even through the darkest nights, we believe. We believe that His promises are true, that one day we will be reunited with the loved ones we have laid in the grave. We believe that He has prepared a place for us in Heaven, where the pain and weeping will cease. We believe that the sunrise is coming, that morning is on the way. And with it, the very opposite of grief: joy.
“…weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” – Psalm 30:5 KJV
“And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.” - Revelation 21:23-25
“And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” - Revelation 21:3-4
“This is all the unexpressed love, right, the grief that will remain with us, you know, until we pass. Because we never get enough time with each other, right? No matter if someone lives till sixty, fifteen, or ninety-nine. So I hope this grief stays with me, because it's all the unexpressed love that I didn't get to tell her.” – Andrew Garfield on grieving his mother’s death, 2021
“Grief.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grief. Accessed 28 May. 2023.
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