Grief Is Not an Illness

Pregnancy and grieving share some things in common. Interestingly, they have often been looked upon as if they were an illness. The truth is just the opposite. Both are high states of health. Suppose a woman was pregnant yet never grew large? That would be as unhealthy for her as a person who lost a great love and never felt sorrow. The truth is that the big belly a pregnant woman is as beautiful a sign of health as tears are for those who grieve. Likewise, in ordinary circumstances, no young woman desires to show off a big belly, but pregnant women do! Imagine if the grieving could carry their honest tears with the same sense of pride and wonder.

These twin states of health have even more wonderful things in common. They are designed by God to give birth to something of incredible value, or rather someone a child through pregnancy, and a new and deeper life through grieving. Both processes take place in the hidden inward depths, shrouded in mystery. With both there is hard labor, there are moments of great pain, there is a rising sense of expectancy, and there is a long process that lies ahead. The difference is that pregnancy begins with the physical consummation of love and grief begins with its unwanted physical dissolution.

Often, of course, that separation through death may have been untimely, tragic, even evil. Death is an evil we were never meant to experience and even though our Lord has tamed it and made it into a passageway into eternal life, the terrible wrongness of it is still very keenly felt. Grief is a good and healthy response to a great and remorseless evil the separation in this life that death imposes with implacable finality. Not to feel that separation as pain, or that unnatural chasm as a grievous wrong would be unhealthy. Our heart naturally cries out: It should never have ended here! Indeed, it won't. Our God has something far better in mind. Just as pregnancy is designed to bring forth children, so grief can bring forth new life.

Envisioning the New Life

What will the child be like? What will that new life be like? You will have to wait to see it. The baby emerges all at once; the New Creation rises by slow tentative steps. We can trace the general outlines of future wholeness by observation of other's experiences. Nevertheless, the wonder of new life is a miracle only God can produce and God takes His time. There is a sufficiency, a fullness, of time that is required for the day of delivery to finally arrive. With pregnancy we expect it to be nine months. No such timetable is given to those who grieve. We would all be wise to entrust the timing of that day into God's loving Hands. Just as Jesus has midwifed many a woman in labor through to safe delivery, so He has guided many a grieving heart on the pilgrimage to recovery.

It may help, then, to see your heart as a kind of womb where the great issues of life can be grown (Proverbs 4:23). The seed of new life has been planted in you right along with the pain of loss. This was a gift of God and His grace. In nature, the farmer must dig into the good soil to deposit the seed. In a similar way, the tearing of your heart by this death has also opened your life for receiving God's redemptive plans. For a long while, however, those possibilities will remain hidden from your sight, even from your understanding. Yet they are there. Farmers never see the seed at this stage. They don't even go looking for it. They know by long experience that the sun's warmth and refreshing rains will bring it forth in due season. They watch over their fields with patience and prayer, as they do the necessary weeding.

So, my friend, let's learn this lesson from the farmers. Watch over everything with prayer and patience our hearts are wombs, carrying the gift of new life. However, don't go digging around inside your heart trying to see what God has in store for you. That only uproots the good things that have already begun growing. If you must dig, root out the weeds instead. Remove all the contaminants you can find. They are trying to choke out any possibilities of new life. Then, stay in the "Sonshine" of Jesus love for you and let the tears flow freely. The seed God planted will grow into a new life all on its own.

Prayer

Dear Lord, help me see my grief through Your eyes. What a wonderful way this turns things around. I admit that I have been seeing grief in negative terms only as being all about the end of a life. It is that, but if this is true, it is so much more! If I grieve this loss well, the grief will be a womb that gives birth to new life. My loved one would want me to embrace that new life. Help me to believe this life-saving truth my grief is alive with your purposes! I believe Lord, help me overcome any remaining unbelief I may still have.

Scripture

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23 ESV