How to grieve as a Christian is a complicated question. 

You can look all over the internet for advice to help you, and each will look very different from one to the next—often leaving you without anything to soothe that aching part of your soul. 

What do you do when your insides feel like they are tearing at the seams from the loss? When your source of power, God, is silent and distant?

Or worse yet, you blame Him for your heartache?

Ultimately, how you grieve is unique to you, but it does reveal a lot about your relationship with God and what you believe about Him.

This is just one story, from one sister-in-Christ, who has felt the sting of loss and saw hope, redemption and new life on the other side. 

My Story

I’ve always wanted a son; even in my youth, I dreamt of him. I prayed hard when it was time to conceive. 

Let him be a man of peace, I prayed. A man who walks in the wisdom of God, let him be the puzzle piece that completes the picture of my little family.

The joy we felt when we found out it was a boy was indescribable but short-lived. 

I was working a 40-hour volunteer position (not unheard of in military homes), going to school to finish my master’s, and having a toddler. All while my husband was out weeks at a time preparing to deploy. 

I spent countless hours in the hospital with unexplained bleeding. 

One night, the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and he said: Get used to the idea; you won’t get to keep him. 

Never had I wanted NOT to hear the voice of God more. I prayed against hope that it was all a dream. 

Then Hurricane Florence hit. 

We stayed put in NC because the hospital was close, but as the storm parked itself on our shores, our world was turned to chaos. 

We went two weeks without power, our roof caved in from water damage, and my doctor’s appointments were canceled one after another. 

When I finally went to see the doctor, my worst fears became reality. 

At twenty-seven weeks, my little boy’s heart stopped beating. He was no more. 

The Aftermath

 

The delivery process was unreal. 

This would be something I had to do alone. No one could help but the Almighty God. Armed with my Bible and my phone I sat and waited for everything to begin. 

I was lucky enough to be surrounded by friends and family who furiously prayed for me, and in that delivery room, I felt completely covered in God’s presence. I felt in absolute peace from the moment I arrived, knowing no one knew how I was feeling better than my Savior. 

We said goodbye to our son and resumed a semi-normal life.

Except it wasn’t.

Outside of that room, I felt raw, exposed, and angry. 

No. 

Irate.

At God. 

He had given me my son just to take him from me.

Why?

I went to church because I knew I had to. 

But I couldn’t sing. 

I couldn’t raise my hands in worship.

The screams I swallowed that threatened to choke me weren’t of jubilation; they were of rage. 

All directed at my God. 

 

How To Manage Grief As a Christian?

Grieving was a process I had to endure. 

Even accepting that God had a hand in it was not easy. I took each day, each second, one at a time because I couldn’t handle much more than that. 

I trusted God in His Sovereignty, that one day this would all make sense. All I had to do was stay by His side, regardless of how I felt about Him in the moment. 

And so I did. 

Faithfully and without wavering, I kept going to church, fists balled as my brothers sang about God’s greatness. I prayed through gritted teeth, my insides boiling with rage, and I cried so many tears that you could have filled oceans with them. 

Slowly and surely, God began to soften my heart. He transformed me into a more graceful mother, a more loving wife, and a human who understood pain. This was the person He needed me to be to fulfill His purpose. 

And my son was the conduit. Now, it all made sense.  

Despite how I felt about God during this difficult time, there were things I and we did as a couple that helped us heal. If you are still with me, I hope you find something here that will help you, too. 

1. Grieve in prayer. Even though I could not sing or worship, I did pray. Constantly. I had nowhere else to put my anger than in my cries out to God. I told him how unfair He was, I asked Him to make my loss make sense, and I pleaded for Him to redeem my son by giving me another child. While I thought that His ways were hard and unjust, I knew that He would listen because He, too, had lost a son. Because he knew what this heartbreak was like. And if I knew nothing about my God, I knew that he would hear my prayers. So pray, my friend. Pray with everything you have, with every emotion that you have. Pray continuously, seeking God’s face in each phase of your grief. There is nothing you will say that will surprise Him, no emotion too big for Him to handle. “Come to me those who are weary, and I will give you rest,” Matthew 11:28. Bring your grief to God in prayer, morning, noon, and night. 
2. Grieve in company.  One of the first phone calls I made after I learned of my loss was to a friend from church. She rushed over to my house, sat with me and my toddler, and prayed over all of us. I reached out to my life group and asked for their prayers, and I did the same for the rest of my community. With such turmoil in my soul, I didn’t know how effective my prayers would be. But I knew the prayers of the righteous avail to much. If my prayers were not enough to get me through the delivery, I knew God would hear theirs; it was in their prayers that I rested my hope. This was why God gave us the body of Christ, to carry burdens too heavy to bear alone. So I invite you to do the same. Reach out to people you trust within your church or small group. Allow them the freedom to intercede on your behalf, and give them specific prayer requests: for your feelings, mental health, and peace. 
3. Grieve with help. Being a military family meant that we had built up some very unhealthy emotional habits when dealing with combat deployments. My husband and I had learned to suppress our feelings over the years because they were not useful or helpful in the face of impending danger. But grief is not like that. It demands that you address it, feel it, and work through it. It’s easier said than done if you don’t have the appropriate emotional skills. And this is where help comes in handy. Pastors, counselors, and therapists are all equipped in various ways to help you navigate the complexities of grief. Leaving such heavy feelings unresolved can be detrimental to your spiritual health and may even develop into strongholds for the enemy to use against you. Don’t let that happen. Just because you’ve had a loss doesn’t mean God isn’t still good. He has put people to help you walk through this challenging season; you don’t have to deal with your grief alone. 
4. Grieve with hope. Romans 8:28 says, ” and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” There is nothing that God will not use for His glory. He can take the darkest episodes in your life and use them to build you into who you need to be to carry out the works that He has prepared for you. In your loss and in your grief, you better believe that God has a plan for your suffering. He will not let it go to waste. He will redeem it and will shine His light through your story. Get into His Word, and let the Word get into you; embrace the promises that are there straight from the mouth of God. They are there to encourage you, to lift you up, and to help you grieve in hope. 

Five Stages Of Grief

There are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. 

Everyone follows no one pattern when dealing with loss, but these are common stages that people face.

Know that feelings that fall within these categories are absolutely normal and part of the healing process.

Don’t be worried if you skip one or more of these stages. 

Your grief is your own. Find a constructive outlet for your feelings, and let God help you. 

Closer Than Your Own Heartbeat 

I will be the last person to express platitudes about your loss; while well-meaning, they do very little for your pain.

The heaviness you feel in your chest and in your spirit is something others could never understand because it’s your experience, not theirs.

Take the time to feel those feelings completely.

Give yourself over to the anger, to the bargaining, through to the depression.

But don’t stay there.

There is more life ahead of you, and your loved ones would want you to live it to the fullest.

Trust me when I say that God is not silent in your loss, and even if you blame him, He is closer than your very own heartbeat.

Rely on him, trust Him, and He will get you through to the other side.

Through the havoc of sadness and disbelief, He is the One who can put your broken heart back together and give you peace. 

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