Walking through grief

'But I know
That the silence
Has brought me to His voice'
(Selah, 'I will carry you')

I've been reading the book of Jeremiah, and what's really striking me is the way that this prophet faithfully witnessed for forty years when virtually no one listened, and went through the catastrophic events of the fall of Jerusalem. He walked through a long time of great sorrow. He wept for the state of his nation and his people. They were rebellious, yet he identified with them. He did not distance himself and shut off his emotions, even though that would have been easier, because he shared God's heart for His broken and faithless people.

Grief and sorrow are hard to bear. Recently I lost my nan, and last July I had a miscarriage. These two experiences of grief have been really different for me, but in both situations I have found it hard to grieve. I have not found myself to be particularly articulate about it, or to understand it, or to find much of anything tangible in it. That's why the lyric I quoted about silence for me really sums up the whole experience. Through miscarriage particularly, I felt a heavy silence. I had no words to talk about it and few to pray about it, but I did hear His voice in certain ways through that time, reassuring me of His presence even though I did not always feel that He was close by.

This verse really struck me today:

'Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in all the earth."' Jeremiah 9:23-24

Grief decisively breaks through all of my so-called wisdom and all of my supposed strength. My riches -possessions, accomplishments- mean nothing when faced with death. But as I am stripped bare and faced with my own inadequacy, I am compelled towards God's sufficiency and grace. He is 'the LORD'. I know that my suffering is not meaningless, because He is a God of 'love, justice, and righteousness'. He doesn't always stop the path from being dark, but He gives me assurance that there will be light at the end.

The most valuable aspect of grief, for me, is that it rocks my world and fractures me away from thinking this is my home and my resting place. It reminds me, with a harsh jolt, that life is full of pain because we have been dislocated from our God through sin. And I get a tiny glimpse of the grief the Father's heart endures when He sees His children suffering through their own rebellion, and ultimately the suffering Christ had to endure to redeem us from this state of dislocation. I think generally, I am way too focused on the here and now. Most of my grief for my miscarried baby centred around the fact that I was never going to be able to do all the things I expected I was going to be able to do: experience a full term pregnancy, give birth to a healthy child, take the baby home, and so on into the future. That's a legitimate reason for grief. But the hope of the New Testament is in the new creation that Christ will bring when He returns, the world put right again, where suffering and death are no more and He wipes every tear from our eyes. My grief made me long for that new creation in a way that I probably should be longing for it all the time; I just don't think about it enough. I get too distracted in the busy-ness of everyday life. Grief forces me to stop.

The story behind Selah's song 'I will carry you' is movingly recorded in an interview with Angie Smith, available on Revive our Hearts.com. Her baby Audrey Caroline had abnormalities with her kidneys and heart, and only lived for 2.5 hours after she was born. When I come across stories like this, part of me shrinks away and doesn't want to hear about it. I'd rather lose myself in a novel or watching a romantic comedy. But Jeremiah has challenged me: is this a godly response to the suffering that is all around us in this broken world? No, it isn't. If we're ever going to get a glimpse of God's heart, it's going to be in sharing these stories of brokenness with the rock-solid hope of Christ, as Angie testifies.

Angie calls for women to break the silence and share their experiences of miscarriage and losing a baby, because too many women out there suffer in silence. Walking through grief is often lonely, and there are times when it just has to be you and God. But reaching out to others, sharing your grief and sorrow, is a necessary part of the healing process and why God has placed us in the loving community that is the Church. We are urged to 'Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn' (Romans 12:15), which beautifully and succinctly sums up the paradox of life in Christ here on earth. We have a bittersweet mix of joy and sadness in our lives, but we know that ultimately, our sadness is temporal; our joy is eternal.

'For his anger is but for a moment, and his favour is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.' Ps 30:5