How to Handle Grief
On New Year’s Day 1997, my husband, Brent, went to bed before me. We’d been up late the night before at a New Year’s Eve party at the church we pastored, and while I’d had time for a nap during that day, he had not.
At about 8:30 p.m., he bent over the couch where I was sitting, gave me a quick kiss, and said, “Night! I love you.” I smiled and said, “I love you back.” And he headed off to bed.
That was last time I saw him alive.
When I got to the bedroom a couple hours later, he wasn’t breathing. I called 911 and the paramedics came, but he was never revived. He hadn’t been sick or anything—he just went to bed and went to heaven at 37 years of age.
As you can imagine, that event rocked my world. I was caught completely by surprise. Our sons were 12 and 13 years old, and the three of us were plunged into a season of grief and bewilderment. As for me, I had to take over parenting teenage sons, pastoring our four-and-a-half-year-old church, and getting over the sudden death of my husband.
I Fell in Love
That was over 20 years ago now and, looking back, I can see that while it was the worst time of my life, you could say it was also the best time of my life. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true. Because I pressed into God like never before, and He met me in a profound and life-changing way. He was right there, a very present help, drawing near to me every time I drew near to Him. It’s really the time I fell in love with Him.
At the time, people said to me, “You’re being so brave, staying with God through all this. I might be mad at Him!”
Well, I may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but I knew that it was no time to get mad at God and walk away from Him—not when I needed Him most! I had to raise teenage boys, pastor a church, and get past grief—I needed all the help I could get. And I knew God was the answer.
So I pressed into Him like never before. I spent hours reading my Bible. I would run my finger down the page like a five-year-old learning how to read. I absorbed it. I was desperate for His peace, His comfort, His guidance—I had to have it—and I knew His Word was the place to find it. God’s Word is Him talking to us, and I wanted to hear Him every minute during those first days of recovery.
Psalm 119:92-93 says it like this, “Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction. I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have given me life.” That was me. I was in a time of trouble and affliction, but His Word was a lifeline for me—I felt like I would have perished without it. Night after night I just sat in a quiet place and let His Word wash over me. He gave me life through His Word—it was my delight.
There is something to that idea of being delighted by spending time with God. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” His Word was my delight, and as a result He gave me the desires of my heart.
I discovered later that these times spent with God were a delight to His heart as well as mine. He loves spending time with His children.
Now, I’m not saying that you have to read the Bible for hours and hours to get to know God. You don’t “earn and deserve” a relationship with God—He already took care of all that in Jesus (we’ll talk more about that in the next chapter). But the Bible is God talking to us. It contains His instructions, His character, His promises, His hopes and dreams for mankind—and for you. It’s the first place to go when you want to get closer to Him.
I found Him through His Word. I found out He is so faithful, so available for us whenever we call upon Him. Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” I found out firsthand that’s absolutely true! As I drew nearer and nearer to Him, He was such a present help—I could feel Him right there with me each day as I navigated my way through the days and months after my husband’s death.
James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” He is true to this promise—He is always available for you when you draw near to Him. There’s really no one else you can say that about. Think about it: even the people you love most can’t be available for you 24/7. There are times you might call on them and get their voice mail, or they’re simply too busy to drop everything and rush to your aid.
But not your Father God. He’s never too busy for you. You’ll never get His voice mail. Every single time you draw near to Him, He’ll draw near to you.
Now, I would say that I knew God before my husband died. I would even say I loved Him, yes! I had read all those verses before. I had preached the Word and been a faith girl. But there’s something about pressing in during a time of need—a time of desperation, really—that helped me find out that He really is a very present help in times of trouble. That time period after my husband died is really when I fell in love with God.
Why? Because I spent so much time with Him.
Only One Thing Is Needed
My story reminds me of a story in the Bible. I got so much closer to God when I spent time with Him—when I chose to sit at His feet, much like a woman named Mary chose to sit at Jesus’ feet when He came to her house one day.
Her story is in Luke 10:38-42, where one day Jesus paid a visit to the house she shared with her brother Lazarus and her sister Martha. Jesus probably brought quite a few people with Him, as He rarely traveled alone, and He also probably didn’t call ahead for reservations. So that meant that Mary and Martha had quite a bit of work to do to serve a meal to all those people at a moment’s notice.
It was obviously pretty stressful, because we see Martha in the kitchen, plucking the chickens, preparing the salad, making the lemonade, ordering the servants around, banging the pots and pans—and then suddenly she looked around her and noticing that Mary was not in there helping.
We know this ticked Martha off, because she immediately ran into her living room and yelled at the Lord (you know you’re pretty stressed out when you yell at the Lord in your living room).
With the vein standing out in her neck, Martha sputtered, “Lord, I’m working pretty hard in here! Make my sister help me!” I’m sure she totally expected Jesus to say, “Oh, you poor girl, yes! Mary, go help your sister.” But no. Instead Jesus focused on Martha with a look of compassion and said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42).
In her frenzy, Martha thought that 65 things were needed to get dinner on the table that day. She thought someone needed to roast the chicken, mash the potatoes, pour the drinks, set the table, etc. But Jesus said that only one thing was needed, and Mary was doing it.
What was Mary doing? She was sitting at the feet of Jesus. Spending time with Him. Listening to Him.
Jesus was obviously trying to tell Martha to stop working so hard and getting so agitated. He wanted her to know that spending time with Him is more beneficial than stressing over all the things she thought needed to get done. And what Mary garnered from that time with Him could never be taken away from her. She benefitted in ways that would last a lifetime. Wow!
We don’t get to see what happened after Jesus said that to Martha. It was probably one of two things—she either huffed away, even madder than before, or she let His words sink into her heart and just stopped the merry-go-round right then and there, sinking to His feet to listen. I hope that’s what she did!
Because if she did, all sorts of miracles might have happened. Think about this: just one chapter before, Jesus had miraculously turned a few loaves and fish into a meal for 5,000 people (see Luke 9:10-17). I don’t think He would have had any trouble getting a meal on the table at Mary and Martha’s house. Could Martha’s attempt to do everything in her own strength have stopped a miracle from happening at her house that day?
I think that quick little Bible story is such a powerful illustration of time spent with Jesus. Putting Him first, sitting at His feet, reading His words, listening for His voice does us so much good! That’s what I did after my husband died, and it changed everything for me.
Spending time with Him is how we get closer and closer to Him—how we get to know Him better and better. It’s how we avail ourselves of miracles; how we put ourselves in a position of peace and rest so we can clearly hear His perfect guidance for our life.
And I believe it also shows how we trust Him. When we say, “Lord, I’m setting aside all the pressing things that need to be done right now and making You my priority,” don’t you think that brings joy to His heart and gets Him excited about working miracles in your life? If someone says that to you—“I’m making you my priority right now instead of all this other important stuff”—doesn’t it make you feel wonderful and feel like helping them? It makes you feel even more in love with them. The same thing happens when we choose to spend more time with God.
Who Moved?
I want you to notice, though, that God leaves it up to us. He’s always available, but He’s waiting for us to draw near. He’s not going to come rudely barreling into our life, telling us what to do or how He can help—He’s a gentleman. It’s up to us how much time we spend—in His Word, in prayer, in meditating. It’s up to us how close we want to get. Isn’t that marvelous? We get to decide how close we want to be to God!
It reminds me of a story. Once upon a time, a young man was dating a young woman. If you happened to be driving behind his pick-up truck when the two of them were on a date, you’d see the young lady sitting so close to her beloved on the bench seat that from your car behind they almost looked like one person.
Fast-forward several years—the two got married, had a couple of children, and now if you drive behind them, you’d see her sitting over on the passenger side of the pick-up next to the door and him sitting behind the wheel. One day she looks over at her husband and says, “Honey, I feel like we’ve grown apart.”
Her husband looks at her, then looks at the steering wheel—looks at her again and looks at the steering wheel again. Finally he says, “Who moved?”
It’s like that in your relationship with God. He is always the same—He never moves. He is always available, always loving you, always ready to help, always ready to draw near. You are the one who moved away. Most of the time it happens gradually—like it probably did for that young couple. You get busy with life and other things take up your attention and time.
But one day you look around and realize that you’re not as close to God as you used to be or you want to be. He’s still in the same place, waiting for you, but you’ve scooted away. The good news is, you can scoot back! He’s not mad or even resentful toward you. He won’t say, “What took you so long?” or cast any disparaging looks at you. No, He’s waiting to welcome you back to the closeness! Or maybe to welcome you to that kind of closeness for the very first time. He’s waiting for you with open arms.
Karen Jensen Salisbury