Grief - Abiding In Love and Truth

“God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.”

At least that is what many Christians say in the face of trial or loss. But is it actually helpful? And is it true? I believe it is rather unhelpful, and only partially true.

I’ve written before on the importance of learning to sit with sadness – something we tend to avoid! It’s hard enough when it’s our own sorrow. We’d rather plunge into busyness or fixing or numbing rather than face our grief. But it’s especially hard when we are in the presence of other people’s pain. That’s when the advice or clichés come out!

First, we’ll try to fix it – if there seems to be a way of fixing. We’ll be “generous” and offer to help; we’ll make suggestions for books or podcasts; or we’ll compare this person’s pain with our own or that of a friend – anything to help make the pain go away, because we don’t like to feel it, and we definitely don’t like to feel powerless.

In some cases (tragedies or definitive losses), there is nothing we can do. When fixing doesn’t work, we start grabbing for clichés. Surely one of them will be the magic wand that will make this feeling of powerlessness go away! Surely one of them will help this person feel better so that I can feel better.

Are these clichés helpful? No, I would say not. They often have the effect of “blaming the victim” or shaming others for feeling the way they feel. Rather than compassion (“suffering with”), clichés are a way of stepping back from the pain of others and leaving them to suffer alone.

I suppose there is a time and a place for distracting or diverting from pain. Perhaps we are in a survival situation and lack the time, resources, or energy to engage head on. If mere survival is the best we can hope for at the moment, then we can indeed turn to our arsenal of distractions and find ways to minimize the pain.

Even when we are ready to face heartache, we are still human, meaning we are limited. We can’t face it all the time. It can be appropriate to take a break from our grieving, laugh together at a joke or a movie, plunge into a hobby or game, and so forth. A cliché could be helpful as permission to take a short break from the pain.

But if our Christian families and communities are unable or unwilling to accompany people as they face pain and heartache, then where can they go? Jesus does not want his Church to be a place of mere survival, but God’s own hospital in which we experience healing, redemption, restoration, and total transformation. That only happens by facing our heartache, taking up our Cross, following Jesus, dying amidst our powerlessness, watching and waiting, and experiencing the newness of the Resurrection. If we desire to be “helpful” to those in pain, we must first walk this path ourselves – as Jesus did. We can’t give what we ourselves have not experienced.

Is there any truth to this expression, that “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle”? Sort of. Here is what the apostle Paul says:

“No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

As you can see, the cliché is an oversimplification and distortion of what Scripture actually says.

Paul doesn’t attribute our trials directly to God’s agency. God permits or allows us to endure trials, but they are human. They are the result of a misuse of human freedom – by our first parents, by others who have caused harm, and by our own sins. Directly or indirectly, all trials in this life are the result of human sin. God allows these consequences because he has entrusted us with dignity, freedom, and real authority amidst our stewardship.

God is faithful. He is absolutely committed to accompanying us through every trial. He will never abandon us, and will never leave us without every means of assistance that we truly need to move through the trial.

God provides a way out. There is a true exit to the trial. We tend to hunker down in our panic rooms, avoiding the heartache – and ultimately getting stuck. But Jesus himself, God’s own beloved Son, has plunged into our trials. He has gone there first, and has opened up a path to new life. If we follow him faithfully, if we share in his suffering and death, we will experience a radical newness and expansiveness – and not just “one day” in heaven.

As we see in the saints, there is an amazing foretaste of this newness that comes even in this life. If you study their lives, you will find a stunning diversity of humans, all with two common features: (1) They endured enormous trials; (2) They were incredibly joyful followers of Jesus.

Like them, we will be able to bear our trials: because God is faithful to his promises, because Jesus has blazed a trail for us, because he accompanies us, and because he won’t allow us to be tested beyond our strength. Therefore, we can hope.

Hope is the answer in the face of heartache. Hope refuses to be killed by suffering (or by clichés!). Hope perseveres – not by naïve optimism, not by secular stratagem, but by waiting persistently for our faithful God to fulfill all his promises. This is the hope of mother Mary standing at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday and at the tomb on Holy Saturday – believing God’s promise, staying present, enduring, pondering, and waiting. The joy of resurrection always comes to those who abide in hope.

May we be people of hope, this Lent and always!

Resuscitation and Resurrection are not the same thing. As disciples of Jesus, our true Hope lies in the Resurrection, but we often cling to a much lesser hope of mere resuscitation.

Resuscitation means temporarily going back to how our life was. Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb and gave him back his earthly life. Astounding though it was, a glimpse of things to come, Lazarus’ new lease on life was still only for a fleeting time. He was not yet ready for the glory of the Resurrection.

The Resurrection is something entirely new. Death is definitively conquered. Jesus, once raised, will never die again. He invades hell and conquers. Beginning on Easter Sunday, he starts appearing to his deeply discouraged and disheartened disciples – astounding and surprising them with unimaginable joy.

Resuscitation does not last. It is not definitive. It does not change the underlying problem. Nonetheless, it has great appeal. Not only does it temporarily extend one’s earthly life, it also allows us to return to what is familiar. We know what to expect, and so we feel in control.

Resurrection is unpredictable and catches us by surprise. It is “New” because it ushers in the New Creation. In the Resurrection, God reigns. We experience his Kingdom in all its power and glory. That means surrendering to the unknown of his infinite goodness and dying to our urge to be in control.

It’s totally understandable that we want to cling to this present existence – it is still so amazing, even though it is only a limited experience of God’s glory. But it won’t last. God truly made us stewards, and we have used our freedom to disobey, allowing corruption and death to have dominion. God will not undermine or erase our freedom. The world as we know it will pass away. But he is creating something new by means of the Paschal victory of his own Son. Through Faith, Hope, and Love we are being initiated into the New Creation.

But there is one catch – we have to die first if we are to rise. And let’s not forget about the agonizing period of watching and waiting in between. What incredible joy it must have been to encounter the risen Jesus on that first Easter Sunday! Peter and the others had left him alone to die on the Cross. Their final moments with their beloved Savior and Messiah were shameful moments of betrayal and weakness. Now that same Jesus suddenly appears to them, clearly victorious and beyond all harm, and speaks astounding words: “Peace be with you.” What a deep and amazed flood of joy they must have felt!

True Resurrection brings joy, even as its newness surprises us. But it is only possible if we first experience the death and the waiting, if we are willing to go into the depths of grief and loss. We often resist!

“I just want things to back to normal!”

How many of us have said or heard these words the past few months! Pining for the way things used to be is itself a normal human tendency. Change is hard. Loss is hard. Grieving our losses is incredibly hard – even though Jesus promises that those who mourn will be comforted and blessed.

We tend to resist true Hope. We prefer to settle for mere resuscitation rather than endure the pain of watching and waiting, not knowing when or how God will fulfill his promise of new life.

In this resistance, we are in good company. Peter and his friends, even after Easter Sunday, still struggled with wanting things to “go back to normal.” In John 21 Peter declares that he is going fishing – going back to his old way of life before he got to know Jesus. No one stops him. Indeed, the others join him!

Jesus surprises them yet again, leading them to a miraculous catch of 153 fish and inviting Peter three times on the seashore to renew his love. As in the Upper Room, he does not shame them for their weak human tendency to turn away. He meets them in their place of heartache and grief.

It’s so hard to grieve, so hard to lament our losses, so hard to open ourselves to the new and better heavenly realities that Jesus is opening us to. It’s much easier to deny or minimize. It may be absolutely obvious that things will never go back to the way they were, but we will keep pretending, keep holding out false hopes. Or we will identify a scapegoat that we can blame, someone to lash out at because things are not the way we want them to be. One need only spend a minute or two on social media these days to find many examples of these behaviors!!

It is much harder to lament – to allow ourselves to feel the depth of grief and agony and to express it to God and to others. Lament and hope are intimately connected. Refusing to settle for any false messiah, authentic Christian Hope stays open to the promises of God – even when God seems to be painfully slow and silent in answering.

The most hopeful people I know are those who are willing to cry out to God like little children – to weep, to groan, to sob, or to scream – but always seeking the face of the living God.

Hope is defiant. It resists the cheap substitute of resuscitation. It does not settle for going back to the way things were, but holds fast in Faith to the promises of Jesus. Blessed are those who mourn; they will be comforted. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; they will be satisfied.

Hope hurts. It is much easier to cling to control, to protect ourselves, to numb our pain, or to cast the blame on others. It is so hard to reach out in Hope when we do not know how or when the answer will come (indeed, what if no answer comes?). There is so much vulnerability there. And so much freedom.

Resuscitation can be a good thing. But in the end, it can only bring us back to the present world of corruption – a world still destined to pass away. Only Resurrection can usher in the New Creation, in which God promises to wipe away every tear, in which there will be no more mourning or death.

During these painful and challenging times, you and I have a choice. Will we cling to our flimsy hopes in resuscitation – or will we go into the depths of grief and lament and dare to hold out Hope in the Resurrection?

Tag: Grief

More Than We Can Handle?

Resuscitation ≠ Resurrection