Funeral Homes:

One of the most pain-filled letters I ever received came from a young mother whose first born child had died of AIDS. She was overwhelmed with the depth of this loss. It was doubly crushing blow to her since she did not know she was a carrier of the disease until her daughter was born. The letter poured out of her anguish and despair. She felt, she said as if God had abandoned her at a time when she most needed this Loving Presence. She even thought of taking her life, so deep was he desolation. As I read her letter, I sensed a deep desire in her to walk with God even though she found no comfort when she tried to pray. Over and over she pleaded for some insight, some direction, on how to relate to God during her time of darkness. The painful emotions described in that letter haunt many human hearts caught up in grief and loss. The negative feelings we have during such times are natural. Yet they bewilder us because we do not expect or accept them as a part of the experience. We want to rid ourselves of the unpleasant feelings as quickly as possible, but grief takes time. We must recognize our feelings of loss and learn to live with them for a time as best we can.

Working Your Way Through

Faith questions naturally arise during these agonizing times. How can I walk with God when God seems to have forgotten all about me? How can I pray when I hurt so much? What do I do when the ways that I used to pray don’t work for me? When we feel engulfed by such questions, there are some helps to which we can turn.

Picture God On Your Side

The way we picture God has much to do with the way we walk with God during our time of loss. It is helpful to picture God as being on our side rather than against us or responsible for our suffering. Harold Kushner tells us in When Bad Things Happen to Good People that God does not send suffering to us; rather, suffering and loss are a result of the human condition. Picturing God as One who is on our side is a strong biblical image. God will never abandon us or forget us. God has great compassion for us, yearning for our peace and joy. Many writers see God as suffering with us, walking the road of our grief, having infinite concern for us. As we pray during our time of grief, we can picture God sitting by our side, looking upon us with much love, or walking with us listening to our story of sorrow.

Trust In God’s Nearness And Goodness

When we are grieving a significant loss, our world can seem bleak and dark. We may feel that God does not care or doubt that God even exists. Grief is a time to trust that God is very close, even though our feelings say otherwise. When we are depressed and all we can think about is our sadness, it helps to call on our good memories. We recall people and events that have brought us happiness. These memories assure us that God does love us very much even though we are missed in gloom at the present time. Good memories also have a way of helping us to trust in the future, when other times of happiness will come our way. Because our inner vision is usually quite blurred when we are filled with painful emotions, we can easily miss the good things that are a part of each day in the present. At the end of each day no matter how miserable it may have been, we can find at least one thing we can be grateful for. We may want to write this down each evening and to look at our "gratitude list" when we are feeling particularly discouraged.

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