Comfort In Bereavement

 

"I feel like I could cry forever.  I miss him so much I actually hurt inside.

Will my life ever be the same?

Have you felt the deep sorrow of the mourning widow?

If you have lost a child, parent, close relative or friend, perhaps you
have also felt comfortless.  Is there anyone who can minister to you
when you feel overwhelmed with grief?

Blooming Flowers In The Springtime Rain

Photograph by Thomas Baker/Image courtesy Fine Art America

The psalmist shows that he identifies with the pain of the bereaved:

"The cords and sorrows of death were around me, and the terrors of
Sheol (the place of the dead) had laid hold of me; I suffered anguish 
and grief, trouble and sorrow."
(Psalm 116:3)

Enveloped by emptiness, loneliness, and stress, who does the psalmist turn to?

"Then called I upon the name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech You,
save my life and deliver me!"
(Psalm 116:4)

He turns to the only One who will dry all of our tears;

"He will swallow up death in victory; He will abolish death forever.
And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; and the reproach
of His people He will take away from off all the earth;
for the Lord has spoken it."
(Isaiah 25:8)

the One who carries all our sorrows; the man acquainted with grief:

"Surely, He has borne our griefs-sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses,
and carried our sorrows and pains of punishment, yet we ignorantly consider
Him stricken, smitten and afflicted by God as if with leprosy. But He was
wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities;
the chastisement needful to obtain peace and well-being for us was upon Him,
and with the stripes that wounded Him we are healed and made whole."
(Isaiah 53:3-4)

Likewise, we must turn to God and His Word for comfort in times of sorrow.
Without denying our pain, Scripture gives us a proper perspective, something
we can easily lose in times of emotional trauma and crisis.

God's Word gives hope when we feel utterly alone and hopeless. We can take
comfort in knowing that God does not allow a trial in our lives
 that is too great for us to bear.

"For no temptation, no trial regarded as enticing to sin, no matter how it comes
or where it leads, has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common
to man, that is, no temptation or trial has come to you that is beyond human
resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted to human experience, and
such as a man can bear.  But God is faithful to His Word and to His
compassionate nature, and He can be trusted not to let you be tempted
and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance
and power to endure, but with the temptation He will always provide
the way out, the means of escape to a landing place, that you may be
capable and strong and powerful to bear up under it patiently."
(1 Corinthians 10:13)

We can also be assured that death does not conquer those who die in Christ:

"For just as (because of their union of nature) in Adam all people die,
so also (by the virtue of their union of nature) shall all in Christ be made alive."
(1 Corinthians 15:22)

"For this perishable part of us must put on the imperishable nature, and  this
mortal part of us, this nature that is capable of dying must put on immortality,
freedom from death.  And when this perishable puts on the imperishable and
this that was capable of dying puts on freedom from death, then shall be
fulfilled the Scripture that says, "Death is swallowed up forever in victory."

O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?

Now sin is the sting of death, and sin exercises its power upon the soul
through the abuse of the Law. But thanks be to God Who gives us the victory,
making us conquerors through our Lord Jesus Christ."
(1 Corinthians 15:53-57)

God is in charge of all things. Even the terrible destruction and the
traumatic aftermath of death  for those who mourn are under His lordship.

God's Word and Spirit can comfort our grieving hearts so that
we will be able to say with the psalmist:

" I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living...O Lord, truly
I am Your servant... You have loosed my bonds...

In the courts of the Lord's house-in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!  Hallelujah!"
(Psalm 116:9,16, 19)

"Comfort In Bereavement"
 By Carol L. Baldwin
A devotional from the book,
The Women's Devotional New Testament
With Psalms & Proverbs
New International Version
(c. 1990, 1993)
The Zondervan Corporation