How am I supposed to live now after losing my darling daughter?
In the aftermath of her death, at times, find myself uncertain if life will ever feel good again. Normal, as I once knew it, will not happen. At least, not in how I define what’s ‘normal’. In the time between what ended of the life I once knew and my last breath, I wonder if I’ll ever know ‘good’ again without that subsequent thought of, “yeah, but…”?
I don’t think I’m alone here, either.
I’ve shared before about heavenly thoughts and love when I come across others who talk about the same. Matthew McCullough, a pastor in Nashville, wrote two books that I read in the last few months: Remember Death and Remember Heaven. In his last book, Remember Heaven, McCullough helps his readers do just this – think heavenly thoughts.
In his chapter on grief, he speaks to the reality that we all face when we lose a loved one: the hope of seeing them again one day. For those in Christ, when they die, there will be a reunion of sorts with the loved ones who died before you. What a beautiful and God-glorifying reality we can enjoy and celebrate!
But, the problem comes, when we only celebrate that reality. For many of us, we can get tripped up hoping only in reuniting with family and friends. The consequences of this hope shroud our remaining days with the gloom of purposelessness.
McCullough reminds us, “The point of heaven is God.”
Yes, and amen!
Pastor Matthew continues, “If we become overly focused on seeing our loved ones again, life in the meantime feels like no more than a holding pattern.” I sympathize with this statement. I experience many good things today. Yet, I can feel as if the days I live now are just a holding pattern until it’s made right again that I’m enjoying days with my full family.
I wait for heaven to be able to enjoy what I define as good.
But, the Bible is clear…as McCullough said, God is the point of heaven.
Ok, so how do I reorient my thinking? When tragedy strikes bringing with it severe loss, how should I see my ongoing grief in the numbered days ahead of me?
From Remember Heaven, “(Grief) can be a precious opportunity to taste heaven’s joys in advance, with greater sweetness than ever before, because loss can drive us deeper into the love of God. It can be, as C.S. Lewis described it, a “severe mercy.” Grief can teach us how good it is to have God for our God.”
Essentially, grief becomes a schoolmaster in my life…a tool the Lord uses to sharpen my days. God uses my grief over losing my precious youngest daughter to help me understand I have an even greater treasure than the precious treasure that she is. How?
In my grief, God intends to drive me to Himself.
As you train toward something, whether that be toward a black belt in karate, a dissertation for your Ph.D., or working toward your journeyman status in a trade, you see increasing conformity to that goal, even enjoyment in your acquiring greater knowledge, skills, and/or familiarity.
In a similar way, if the point of heaven is God, then, I should hope for escalating joy and satisfaction in the point of my destination. The purpose of each numbered day the Lord ordains for my life should amount to finding deeper, more sustained, and greater joy in the One to whom I’m coming home to. Not the ones He gave me to enjoy here on earth (though I will also get to do just that), but in Him. And, grief over losing them, is one of those tools the Lord employs to help us get there.
As Pastor Matthew also said, the “purifying purpose” of grief helps us come to love God more. Why? Because He’s “near to the brokenhearted” (Ps 34:18)…His “nearness is our good” (Ps 73:28)…He’s a “very present help in trouble” (Ps 46:1)…and
Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places. (Hab 3:17-19)
So, instead of allowing the experience of the inevitable grief that comes alongside my joys trick me into believing that I’m only left to slug out the days that remain in misery, I take my thoughts captive and bring them heavenward. Instead of waiting in a holding pattern, I expectantly hope that these sorrows sharpen me purposefully for more. God’s truth about my grief – even the incredibly painful, almost-daily reminders that one of my children is no longer here with me – teaches me something even better than I would have learned without it…
Grief is a purposeful gift from the Lord to help me…to help you…understand that even His best gifts, that are here one day and gone the next, teach us about the even greater gift to come.
Grief helps us understand how good it is to have God as our God…
Till we are home…
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