The Both/And Reality of Grief — Broken & Hopeful

There’s something about the contrast of a small girl with a halo of blonde curls clutching her daddy’s shirt while at his funeral with a giant beaming smile on her face. No, she doesn’t understand the scope of what’s happened. But isn’t that such an example of the emotions of grief? We laugh, we cry, we don’t have a clue what will happen next in the torrent of feelings.I had the privilege of attending this little girl’s dad’s funeral this week, and watching her mom brave the emotion of death while standing up front talking about her husband, his fight with cancer for the last year and his pain. Her honesty about the whole thing had a beautifully raw quality. She talked about how hard it was now, and how hard it was going to be. She came back to her (and her husband’s) hope in Jesus and stood firm in how that was going to get her through. It was both pain and hope, not either pain or hope.I think often we approach grief with this attempt at disconnection. We want to either seal off the pain and just talk about the hope, or we completely get swallowed up by the pain while ignoring the possibility that life might go on. It’s hard to balance the two seemingly warring parts of ourselves.How can we acknowledge the very real pain while also trusting God will bring beauty out of it? It’s not an easy tension. It is possible, though, to feel the emotion while standing in the truth. It doesn’t have to be either/or.I love the Psalms and the raw lament throughout as the Psalmists hold this tension. These authors plead for God’s ear with their sadness, their anger, their frustration with the situation. But they keep coming back to His lovingkindness, His faithfulness and His power. It is both. We can feel while also acknowledging His great work in our lives.One of the poisonous lies of the enemy, in my opinion, is that of God’s disconnection. We try to emotionally distance Him from the hard thing that’s happened, judging Him for His lack of empathy. But I don’t buy it. I do not see a God of distance in the Scripture. He over and again repeats His faithfulness in not abandoning us in our pain (even when we caused it), His furious love in pursuing us to our darkest pit, and His sadness in mourning for the lack of connection with the ones with whom He craves relationship.The scene where Jesus laments in Matthew 23, baring His heart in wishing to gather Jerusalem’s children like a hen gathers her chicks but recognizing their rejection—we see His continued reaching for relationship even when we blatantly turn Him down over and over. He lashes out at the religious crowd who have not acknowledged Him. He could choose to turn away. But He doesn’t. He has decided the pain of repeated rejection is worth the possibility of real relationship, and wades through the pain for us to see Him. Instead of rejecting us, He dies and rises again to show, again, His incredible, unfailing love.Emotion isn’t bad. It’s actually part of being created in the image of God. But we can hold that emotion and experience it while standing on the truth. It isn’t one or the other—it’s both. I was reminded of this while watching a hurting mother talk about the hope she has in her God, even through losing her husband. She isn’t denying the pain. She isn’t pretending everything is ok. But she is also being carried by Jesus through this thing, maybe the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.And today, in whatever pain and grief you and I feel, we can acknowledge the hurt while also seeing the promise of God to carry us through. Nothing is impossible with Him—not even grief.

I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord. How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, and has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood. Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; there is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count. Psalm 40:1-5