The Darkest of Seasons

On Sunday we received terrible news that our friends precious nine month old daughter suddenly passed away. As I write this, my heart is overcome with grief for them. I think once you experience grief, it's very easy to go back to that place. A place of great sorrow where your heart is literally aching and it is hard to find joy in anything. (Before I continue, I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not taking their loss and making it about me. What they are experiencing is devastating, it just brings back all these emotions I had when my father passed and that I am still working through). Now I am flooded with feelings from their loss, the loss of my father, and every other loss in between. It seems like everywhere I turn there is tragedy. This has been a dark season of life, not just for me, but for those around me as well.

I don't understand why this is. Why is it just one terrible thing after another? And not just any terrible thing, but the worst thing, death. In Ecclesiastes 3 it says that there is a season for everything, "a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance." This season of weeping and mourning has lasted way too long. When can we laugh and dance again without the pain of great loss looming over us? I don't think we fully can outside of heaven. I'm sure over time the pain lessons, but the sorrow is still there. 



Death is the ultimate stain of sin left in the world. It is so tragic and a reminder that we are living in the midst of brokenness, completely helpless.

And then I'm reminded of the resurrection. 


This is where the good news lies. Through Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, death has been defeated. I listened to an Easter sermon yesterday (The Tomb & The Womb) because I needed to be reminded that there is good news. The pain and sorrow we feel will not always be, because there is life after death for those that are in Christ. He has defeated death and there will be laughter and dancing again. Does this mean that we still don't mourn and grieve when we lose those we love? By no means. The sorrow we feel is real and ever present. But this means that we can have hope for a future where everything is made right. One where there is no death, only life. Now that I have tasted grief, I can long for a world without it all the more. And this where my hope lies. Christ's accomplished work on the cross has made a way for life to continue on after death. 




But for now, I will grieve. I will grieve for my friends. I will grieve for this unexpected, heart-wrenching loss. And as I have done for the last 7 months, I will find comfort in this:

“I believe like a child 

that suffering will be healed and made up for, 

... that in the world's finale, 

at the moment of eternal harmony, 

something so precious will come to pass 

that it will suffice for all hearts, 

for the comforting of all resentments, 

for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, 

for all the blood that they've shed; 

that it will make it not only possible to forgive 

but to justify all that has happened.”- Fyodor Dostoyevsky