The Spiritual Discipline of Grief

Grief dissolves the gilded images we create for ourselves. Loss creates a rare moment when the carefully constructed facades people wear crack open, revealing the raw and tender humanity and faith beneath. The composure, pride, hope, faith and insistence that everything is “under control” lay scattered among anger, confusion, fear and longing. In these moments, more than any other, friends, neighbors and colleagues see the substance of a person’s faith (or lack of it).

      The world attempts to comfort the grieving with placations that “death is natural.” The absurd assertion that “death is a part of life” ventures to address the universality of grief. While such statements acknowledge sorrow, they fail to redeem it. Broken hearts grow accustomed to despair when they’re offered explanation without hope.

      Those who grieve without Christ know only a sorrow that cannot penetrate the depth of questions that have eternal power like “Why?” and “What now?”