Nothing in life really prepares us for the death of a loved one, especially if that death is totally unexpected. Although we know that people – even children – die everyday, we never think it can happen in our family. Sooner or later all of us are confronted with the inevitable. It may come unexpectedly. Or it may come at the end of a lengthy illness. However it comes, it is always painful and inevitably followed by grief and an almost overwhelming sense of loss.

Perhaps you are experiencing grief today. I don’t know entirely what you are feeling nor can I fully understand the depth of your grief nor will I pretend to know all the answers to your questions. All I really have to share is God’s love and some painful lessons that I have learned while dealing with my own grief and trying to help others deal with theirs.
One of my first experiences with death came while I was in college. Late one night I received a jarring phone call that my two brothers and a cousin were killed in a near head on collision. The driver of the other car was a teenager who had been drinking and ran a stop sign hitting my brother’s car.

As I flew home for the funeral, it seemed that I was in a slow-motion dream. God gave me peace to bring comfort and hope to my family and friends. It was a few weeks after the funeral, when I was alone back at college laying face down on the floor, that great heaving sobs convulsed through my body and everything in the universe seemed to have withdrawn leaving me alone in my pain. After what seemed to be an eternity my grief seemed to exhaust itself and God filled me with His peace once again. I think I accepted their death at that time, though it did not fully sink in for several months. Sometimes the loneliness and grief would roll in like a tidal wave.

The questions came later, after I became a pastor and found myself ministering to families in similar situations. Their desperate questions gave birth to my own: Was God to blame for my brothers’ death? Did He kill them, or at least allow them to die? Questions similar to these drove me to my knees in prayer and a study of the scriptures. I concluded that sin, not God, is responsible for disease, destruction, and death. That is not to say that their personal sin was responsible or even, God forgive, the sin of the parents. It means that sin has tainted the entire human race and disease, destruction, and death are the inevitable consequences. Romans 5:12 declares, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so death passed upon all men.”

God doesn’t send death upon people nor does He will it. Death is simply a natural consequence of humanity’s fallen state of sin. Jesus taught this when asked why certain Galileans were killed or why a tower fell on eighteen people. (See Luke 13:1 – 5.) Jesus doesn’t tell us why these people died but He does make it clear that the reason for their deaths is more complicated than cause and effect. There are no pat answers to question of why. I must admit that I am often without answers, but one thing I am sure of – God is not to blame! When tragedy strikes, when a loved one dies, God’s heart is the first to break! (See Psalm 116:15.)

Richard Exley states concerning grief in his book When You Lose Someone You Love “Because grief is so painful, you have probably been tempted to seek not only relief but escape. Don’t! While that reaction is not unusual, it is not a foe to be overcome but a friend to be embrace. Grief itself is painful but not injurious. It is a wound that brings healing in much the same way a proper surgical procedure wounds the body in order to heal it.”

Grief is a healing gift from God. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). When you weep, God weeps with you just as Jesus wept with Mary following the death of her brother Lazarus. As you share your sorrow with God, you will experience His comfort and He will bear a portion of your grief (Isaiah 53:4).

For those who grieve, like Mary and Martha, Jesus gives the hope of eternal life. “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me shall live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? (See John 11:25, 26 and I Thessalonians 4:13, 14; 5:10.)

Do you have that comfort and assurance of eternal life? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Call on Him today.