The Christian's Grief

Living outside the Garden

I don’t know what has come over me lately. I have always been an emotional person, but I find myself grieving more than ever. Of course at the time of writing I have reasons to grieve. In two days time it will be the 6th anniversary of my Father’s death. Next week is also the first anniversary of my Mother’s death.

But it is more than the grief that comes due to outliving one’s parents, it is more than the fact that I am an emotional person. I think it is due to the fact that grief exists, that grief is necessary; because I, like all of us live outside the garden and long to return.

It feels strange writing that last sentence, how can one long to return to a place one has never seen, never visited, let alone lived? A beautiful quote I encountered last year answers that question:

“Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.” Naguib Mahfouz:

I grieve because because my attempts, and the world’s solutions to find home…fail. Just like the Pevensie children’s futile attempt to re-enter the magical world of Narnia after returning to reality through the wardrobe, the way is shut.

So I grieve and I should grieve.

I heard it said that the journey through the Psalms mirror life. It starts with the right way to worship God, Psalm 1. There is one God and every human being is made to love, know and worship this one God and flourish under His beautiful life-giving rule. Just like Genesis 1 and 2. Then it journeys through the pain of not being home, with peaks and troughs, highs and lows, grief and joy, and finally home, joy and praise. Oh how we love the joy! How we long to praise! But we are not home yet. Yet we avoid lament…and we hear these voices from within and out with, “where is your faith?” “Christ has conquered!” “Christ is victorious!” “Christ is risen!” Yet just over 40% of the Psalms are laments.

There should be room for grief.

After all, there are plenty of reasons to grieve.

First and foremost - we are not where we are made to be. We are made to enjoy God’s presence, without fear, without doubt. Yet whilst God is present with us by his indwelling Holy Spirit, “we walk by faith, not by sight” 2 Cor.5:7, “for now we see in a mirror dimly”, 1 Cor. 13:!2.

Our bodies are not what they are meant to be. Now in our western culture which is body image obsessed, it easy to lament this fact. Especially in the world where “influencers” are a thing (how did this happen? For another article, and hopefully written by someone else). But one verse grieves me:

By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:19

Because of our first parents’ sin, this is the way of all the earth. We are dust and to dust we shall return. Living can easily be called dying. We are all turning to dust. Our bodies will sooner or later fail us. Now I train pretty hard, I lift a lot of weights repeatedly. At fifty, I am stronger now than I was at twenty. But get hurt a lot quicker now and heal a lot slower. Let me put it another.

When you are child and fall, you are like a ball.

When you are middle aged and fall, you are like a meteor.

When you are old and fall, you are like glass.

But whether we are like a ball, like a meteor, or like glass. We are all dust.

And death is horrible.

There is a stupid poem that I don’t allow and never will allow at funerals that I preside over. It is a pathetic attempt to make death die. It ends…

Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

But we do go there and we will die. Even the Apostle Paul when writing to the church at Thessalonica says:

¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

St Paul does not tell the Christians at Thessalonica not to grieve. But grieve differently. He assures the church (and us) of what will happen to those whom were trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ who have died. For when Christ returns to earth to reign, he will bring him all those whom he has saved. Yes there is hope and real assurance, but until we are home, it is mingled with grief.

I remember like yesterday the moment I received the news that my Father was not long for this world. He lived a six hour drive away from me and I was three hours in when I received the phone call that he had died. It is one of the saddest memories of my life to this day, the fact that I did not make it. It brings me to tears still as I write this. I remember turning the car around and making the sad three hour trip home. But I don’t remember it very well. I don’t remember the week leading up his funeral very well. Grief can do that. Grief does that. But one thing I do remember and keep remembering, that in my grief, God is still my Father.

And He is your Father.

Your beautiful, perfect, and perfectly loving Father, who gave his perfect Son. And although we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. ²³ And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:22b-23), Christ will make things right again.

Christ will bring us home again. And when we are home dear brother, dear sister, grief will be no more, we will never grieve again, it will no longer be necessary.

So what do I do in my grief?

I remember…

I run…

I cling…

to my Heavenly Father, your Heavenly Father,

to my Saviour, to your Saviour

to our Christ

Our Lord

Our Saviour.