When We are Bereaved

Bereavement comes inevitably to every human being. A telegram arrives, the phone rings, a letter is delivered to break the news that someone we love is dead. We are stunned by the sudden shock.

On other occasions we have time to prepare ourselves for the dreaded blow. We watch our loved one growing older or weaker. We tell ourselves that "if anything should happen" to him or her, it would be "a happy release".

But whether the death is unexpected or long awaited, when it occurs it fills us with an unutterable sense of loss. For many people this sense of loss is delayed. We may receive the news calmly enough at the time. The tasks of making a journey, telephoning friends, ordering wreaths, preparing for the funeral, attending to business connected with the death, carries us along for the time being.

It is afterwards, when we are alone with our emotions, or are handling our loved one's personal belongings, that the truth sweeps over us: "I will never see him again in this life."  We feel a crushing sense of loss. We breathe faster and deeper. Tears rise to our eyes. "I can't grasp it, "we tell ourselves. "I'll never hear her voice or touch her hand again."  We try to choke back the tears. We bite our lip. We say, "I must not give in to my feelings. "

Bereavement cards flow in by every mail, but their words may not reach the depths of our feeling. Letters arrive from friends expressing their sympathy, but their well-intentioned sentiments may give us little real relief.

Can we, then, find any true comfort at such a time as this? Or must we bear, unrelieved at all, this nagging, inner pain? There are some things we can do to help ourselves.

We can weep-Many people imagine to weep is unmanly-a sign of hysteria or weakness. In other days the bravest of men thought nothing of shedding tears. King David wept on receiving the news that his son has been killed. Jesus wept when His close friend, Lazarus of Bethany, died.

What else are tears for? Human beings have not changed. We are the only creatures God has endowed with the capacity to weep. Tears are the safety valves of the emotions. We all hold tears in reserve for our high moments of joy and our dark hours of sorrow. Never can they relieve us more than when we are suffering the pain of pent-up grief.

That is not to say that we need to make a public exhibition of our grief. But to weep-perhaps behind the closed door-can help us to purge our emotions and express the sense of intolerable loss that we feel.

Don't be afraid to weep. Let the tears flow unchecked. They are a healing balm. Then go out bravely to face the world.

We can remember-Our loved one will still live in memory. In fact, that is where most living people exist for us at this moment. That parent, brother, sister, friend we haven't seen for the past six months really lives in our memory. We recall how he looked, what she said, what they were doing when we saw then last.

Even the husband, wife or child we told good-bye when they left home this morning and who are still absent, remain with us only in our memories.

We still have the memories of the one we have lost. We can relive old times, recall old experiences, just as vividly as when he was here but out of our sight. Those precious memories are not part of ourselves. Bereavement, rather then robbing us of them, has a strange way of intensifying them and making them more vivid than before. In that sense, therefore, the one we mourn has not left us and cannot leave us. Those living images we still retain in our minds will help tremendously to lesson our loss.

We can be sure that death is not a goal but a gate-If we had to imagine that it was the end when we commit our loved one's body to the grave or return it to the elements in a crematorium, our sorrow would be hopeless.

But if the Christian gospel means anything, if Jesus spoke with authority, then we may rest assured that the one we have lost still lives on.

Although we cherish the familiar face, it was not just a physical body that meant so much to us. It was the person who inhabited that body, who spoke through those lips, smiled through those eyes, performed loving tasks with those hands, whom we loved. The real person behind that body we never in fact saw. Now that that body has been vacated, we know that the real person has found a new spiritual freedom, unhindered by physical limitations.

When we read the New Testament we feel that we are standing on the threshold of an eternal world, beyond this "bourne of Time and Place,"  where those who have left their earthly bodies here to perish, still live on.

In His wisdom, God has not revealed to us all that lies beyond that gate. None of us can speak with certainty about it. Jesus spoke about life beyond death but said little to satisfy our curiosity for detail about that world-a world whose existence He did not try to prove but took for granted and assumed that others did also.

In a morbid anxiety to penetrate the veil that lies between, some people have turned in their bereavement to spiritist cults which have held out the prospect of an answer.

No such morbid probings of the spirit world, nor anxious desires to communicate with departed ones on the other side, can satisfy our deepest needs. True Christian faith believes that those who leave this world are in the hands of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is love, who "doeth all things well,"  and is content to leave them there. As Abraham expressed it, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? "(Genesis 18:25 ).

To know that our parting, like all other partings with our loved ones when they were here, is but for "a little while" will help us to smile in hope even though our tears.

We know that we are not left to bear our sorrow alone-If we had no other help then that which our human tears and philosophy can provide, we would find little solid consolation in our loss. But we are not alone in our grief. Jesus Christ has identified Himself with our humanity. He who calls Himself the Good Shepherd says, "Lo, I am with you always" (Matthew 28:20 )

Knowing that He understands just how we feel comforts us and fortifies us to bear our loss with courage. As we face the funeral, we can say with Paul, "O death, where is they sting? O grave, where is thy victory?... Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Corinthians 15:55 : 57). As we face lonely days ahead, we can say, "Thou art with me."  

To commit one's whole life-body, soul and spirit-to Him as our Lord is to find the only source of comfort in a present bereavement, the secret of adequacy for every day that dawns, and the assurance of eternal life beyond after our last sun has set.

If you have been blessed by this tract, please share your testimony by writing to us:

Calvary Tract Ministry
Calvary Pandan Bible-Presbyterian Church
201 Pandan Gardens Singapore 609337
Tel: (65) 6560 3885 | Fax: (65) 6566 3806
Email: calbp@pacific.net.sg
Website: http://calvarypandan.org