Grief, Suffering & Certain Hope

Double M Farms has always felt like home to me. It housed two of my favorite people in the world and some of my favorite seasons of growth. I remember the big, black cast-iron bell dinging like it was yesterday, as Grammy would call us all in (many of us from acres away) for the most delightful breakfast (frozen peaches, fried potatoes, country ham, bacon, the good gravy and made from scratch biscuits). And I always snuck a Dr. Pepper out of the fridge on the back porch. We’d sit, gathered around the table while Pop read a daily devotional and then we’d grasp hands as he led us in prayer before we broke bread and laughter once again filled the room.

So many of my favorite memories live within the walls of a 100 year old white farmhouse with a tin roof that provides the perfect sound machine on rainy nights. A house where there is always a lamp glowing in the living room, Bonanza on tv, and a mellow yellow right by the old leather recliner. The phone rings, multiple times an hour, with friends and family from near and far who call often to check in, reminisce on days gone by or update about their children and grands.

I know Jesus more because of the nearly 28 years I got to spend around that old farmhouse table, often crammed into the corner beside my siblings or dozens of cousins. I know more about my family, history, cars and agriculture than I ever could have known.

Unexpected Loss

Earlier this year, Pop’s unexpected death came as a huge blow to our entire family. I remember David calling and choking out the words that he died in an accident. A fire. I remember my heart sinking as I called my dad just praying that it wasn’t real.

I remember showing up for the visitation. I pulled into the little parking lot of the sweet country church that I had grown up going to in the summers and weekend trips back to the farm. I remember standing there for hours as hundreds of my grandparents friends filed through the line hugging us and telling us memories of Pop, I laughed and I cried. The room was so full, but at the same time it felt hollow and empty.

The funeral was heavy. It was sad. My grandmother couldn’t attend because she is in advanced stages of Alzheimers. I had learned how to grieve the living years ago when my grandfather had Alzheimer’s and my family split up, surely I could learn to grieve the dead. Grandparents are supposed to die first. I know that is how life works, but traumatic, unexpected death hits hard.

How do you grieve well when all you want to do is know how such a terrible thing could be used for the glory of God? How could God allow that to happen? All I wanted to do was sit in a room alone with my grandfather. There were so many things I wanted to ask him, so many stories I still wanted to write down…so many hard drives of family photos and memories we still had to piece together into a family book we wanted to print.

Yet here we were singing hymns in the middle of deep loss. In the middle of a cold, rainy day in February. At a funeral I hadn’t planned to be at, but then again, who plans to be at a funeral?

A pattern of lament

And it reminds me of the Psalms where we are shown pattern after pattern of lament and countless ways to be honest about our grief and move towards trust in God. This is the pattern we see over and over in the book: a statement of loss, of fear, of anger or of distress followed by crying out to the Lord. Eventually the Psalmist usually goes to a truth about God’s character that calms him and reminds him of why he trust in the Lord in the first place.

Psalm 130 follows this pattern and has served many saints who are grieving with words to articulate their very present heartache. Though it’s short, it’s packed with emotion and expression of deep pain.

Verses 1 and 2 read, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!”

This was how I felt. Standing in the front of the church hugging hundreds of people I did not know, comforting them in their grief and loss, but inwardly I was sitting in the depths of woe. I wanted to feel near and cry out to a God who wasn’t. I needed him to hear me and my siblings. We needed mercy. We needed to be listened to. We needed to be gathered up.

Acknowledging Grief

The Psalmist goes on, “If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared.”

I knew that Pop had known forgiveness, that he had grasped the beautiful simplicity and depth of the gospel, and it was a comfort. I was sure of his place, sure that he was present with Jesus, certain that he would never want to come back here. But oh what I would have given (and still would give) to sit at a table with him again talking about family history or to pick pears with him on a crisp September day. My grief felt heavy, unexpected. Hard.

“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”

In our grief, we wait. Our souls wait for the Lord to redeem us, to walk with us, to give us enough grace for each moment and to carry us through. We hope in his word, his promises, his character. We look back to the times that the Lord has been faithful and we cling to hope. This is the intersection of pain and promise, this is the place of waiting in deep grief.

Waiting with Expectation

More than watchmen for the morning…..

Watchmen wait, eagerly expecting morning. They wait for dawn knowing that the sun will surely rise again. The watchman in this Psalm would have stood most of the night, standing on a wall of the city, watching for danger. But we watch and wait for something else. In our grief, in our loss, we wait for the Lord himself. We long for his presence, his warmth in our darkness. We wait in watchful anticipation, with certain hope and grieving hearts — we wait for Jesus himself.

We long for his presence, his warmth in our darkness. We wait for his hope to make itself known, for his Spirit to wake us again. 

Notice the honesty of the Psalmist. He does not tamp down his need or tuck away his anguish. He lays it all out before God, expecting something. There is always something we need, always something for which we are waiting on God. This is life in a world where Eve ate the fruit––a continual waiting on God, a regular admittance of our pain, whatever it is. And then?

HOPE IN YOUR GOD

“O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” (Verses 7-8)

The psalmist reminds himself of what he knows is true. His hope is found in the God who is steadfast, loyal, steady. God is generous with his redemption. This is the pattern of the Psalms and must be our pattern as well. We have absolute freedom to come with our anguish and in our overwhelmed state. We wait in our pain for the only one who can do anything about it. And then we remind ourselves of what we know to be true. God is faithful. He loves us. He is for us. He forgives us.

We wait for God to come and be present with us in this pain. His presence is what he has promised, and what our souls long for as we walk the heavy steps through the dark night of grief. We wait for him, our souls long for him, and by his Spirit, he meets us there. 

He will walk with us, through valleys of deep, hard loss and through seasons of joy. He will never leave us or forsake us, we will never be alone, not even for one step of the journey. He will carry us safely through every hardship and joy that comes our way and one day, one glorious day we will see Jesus. The object of our hope, our great joy. And we will see him in all of his glory and we will get to glory in him, our redeemer. We will then understand his purposes and plans, and we will never face sorrow or loss again we will instead stand, in the fullness of the presence of Jesus where we can rest in his steadfast love and praise his name forevermore, just as Pop is doing at this very moment. What a glorious day in paradise that will be!