No matter what the circumstances, death shakes us to the core. It seems so wrong, and it is! We long for comfort, but we don't know where to look. Can God really help when we are overwhelmed with grief?
With compassion and biblical wisdom, Paul David Tripp shows us how to think and what to do when death enters our door. He reminds us that we have a Savior who knows our sorrows, hears our cries, and promises to one day wipe away all tears. Hope and healing come from our relationship with Jesus, the One who promises to walk all the way through the valley of the shadow of death with us.
Is a life-threatening illness, a major life change, or just plain old age forcing you to face your own mortality? Probably, like most of us, you'd rather not think or talk about your own death. But ignoring your death won't stop it from happening--the mortality rate is still 100%!
Tuesdays with Morrie, a 1997 book by Mitch Albom about his conversations with ALS patient Morrie Schwartz, made wisdom from our elders popular, especially if those elders are dying. There is something about dying that clarifies the mind and reveals what is especially important. My father-in-law Jack is my Morrie.
He was diagnosed with untreatable stomach cancer in March 2011, and our entire family had the opportunity to spend time with him in June.
I would sneak in for extra time.
I missed his recitation of Psalm 121, which he offered to family and friends a few weeks before, while he was recovering from unsuccessful chemotherapy. I was not going to miss anything else. That’s how I got to hear the sparrow story.
A good friend of mine asked, “How are you doing in recovering from your father’s death?” Which made me wonder. Recover. Is that what I’m trying to do?
It certainly is a common expression, and it’s even the goal set forth by several groups that specialize in grief. These groups offer to steer you through a course of activities to help you “recover.”
I stopped in my tracks, my eyes glazed over, and I commenced to have a meltdown, right there in the produce aisle. It was the sight of the artichokes that did it.
I’ve been flying a lot lately, back and forth from New England to Florida where my mom is. My dad died unexpectedly a couple months ago. There are a lot of details to attend to after someone dies.
I am here in wintery Vermont, looking over an unbelievably beautiful landscape. The sun is just coming up, starting to make the snow twinkle as it does on the coldest of days. The snow is very deep, perfectly white and glistening smooth, completely covering the hilly terrain around our house. There are no tracks at all. The storm ended during the night, but no animals or people have yet to venture out.
It reminds me of a time years ago when our kids were heading to school. They used to walk through the woods for almost a quarter mile to get to the bus stop. (Yes, growing up in Vermont can, at times, be very idyllic.) On one particularly snowy morning I asked them if they’d be all right getting to the bus. My ten year-old said, “Of course we’ll be fine, we can still see where the path is.” The path through the woods was originally made by deer, who, for many decades had nibbled away the branches and packed the ground on their way to the stream that runs along the old dirt road where the school bus now picks up kids. It was true, even when fresh snow covered the ground, you could still tell where the path was.
My dad died a month ago. He was 79 and very healthy. He just suddenly fell over at home and died within minutes in my mother’s arms of an abdominal aneurysm. It was completely unexpected.
Of course, this is one of those moments that all the lessons God has taught us so far either prove to have taken hold, or not. And it’s a moment for new lessons as well. I’ve had plenty of both over the past weeks. As I process these lessons, I thought maybe I’d share them with you. Grief is complicated and covers a lot of emotional ground. It might involve difficult relationships, unclear beliefs, fear of future loss, or fear of dying. We become aware of loose ends, things unsaid, and wasted time. We can be sad on so many levels that they just tangle together.
Someone you know and love has died. You feel the emptiness and sorrow of loss. That alone is extremely hard. But suicide adds many other painful reactions to the heartache that death brings. Common reactions are feelings of anger, guilt, betrayal, and many, many unanswerable questions.
