Hope Beyond Grief
By Tersia Malherbe, All Nations Cape Town leader
We seldom speak about grief. It is as if we just want to forget about our loss and carry on with our lives. We don’t want to admit that we need to grieve sometimes. Yet, loss is part of life – we may lose loved ones, as in my case, or we move to a foreign land and leave our relatives and all the well-known things behind. Sometimes we lose our ministry, like when we don’t get our visas renewed. In all these cases we lose something precious, and we grieve it in different ways.
I experienced great loss in 2020 and I want to share with you how God taught me to grieve my loss. I remember the day I walked into my home and I saw my husband’s stricken face when he told me, “Your dad was in an accident and we must go to the hospital immediately.” Time stood still in that moment. It felt like a movie of which I wasn’t a part. We rushed to hospital, stood around my dad’s bed and suddenly it was all over. He was gone. No time to say good-bye or to say one more time, “I love you.” At first I was angry that he was taken from us so suddenly. Then the sorrow took over. Only a few months later I found myself in the same situation again. We were so happy to announce we were going to have another baby. We prepared our hearts and I started to decorate the room. But it was not to be. I had a miscarriage soon after and we lost the baby.
Suddenly I found myself in a desolate place. I haven’t even grieved my dad properly and here I was struck again! I was numb and chose to run away from my feelings. Have you ever been in a situation where life just didn’t work out the way you expected it to? Besides my sorrow, I was disappointed in life, even in God who didn’t come through for me.
One day I was pulling out weeds in my garden. There was a patch of grass in front of me that was lifeless because weeds took it over. I felt God speaking to me and telling me, “You cannot run from your feelings of pain, disappointment and grief. It will take over your heart if you allow it to, like the weeds took over this patch of grass.” I told God, “But my pain is too much for me to pull out. I hold onto it to protect me from further pain.” God said, “I know, my child. You just do your part, and I will do the rest.” I felt Him saying He was not overwhelmed by the messiness of pain and disappointment in my heart. He would take it out if I surrendered it to Him, and He would transform it into a memorial – a sacred space in which He can be glorified.
The last while, I have been thinking that life can be beautiful and terrible at the same time. I have learned since that day that Jesus meets me in my happy and sad moments. I learned that when I hurt, I often put self-deceiving defence mechanisms in place that keep me from giving and receiving love freely. In my grief I so easily lost sight of God, who He was and who He made me to be. I even began to doubt who I was.
To move towards healing I had to surrender my pain to Jesus. I had to allow Him to enter that place of pain, the place I wanted to deny and ran away from. The place I protected because I feared more pain. When I gave it all away, I had nothing to lose and nothing to hide. As I looked at my pain and sorrow, I felt God said I was worth loving, even with all my grief and brokenness.
I want to encourage us. All of us experience grief and disappointment. All of us fail sometimes. On our journey with Jesus we don’t suddenly become angels. We are flawed like broken jars of clay. He knew that when He called us. But in Him we are a new creation, in Him we can become more like Him. So, our brokenness does not keep God from calling us or loving us.
May you, in every season of your life, even in times of grief, find your joy in Jesus. When life is both wonderful and terrible at the same time, run to Him and let Him embrace you. Allow those around you to love you – and keep on loving.
I am still learning that when I am honest about my pain, fear, disappointment, need and brokenness – the protective web I have woven around myself – when I face them, call them by name and confess them to God, I break the power they hold over me. I throw off the mask and break the threat of shame. Instead, I am filled with freedom, trust and an understanding of who I am in Jesus. I become transparent and inspire others to face their pain and disappointment, knowing they are not alone in their struggles.
“The most beautiful stones are those that have been tossed by the wind, washed by the waves, and polished to brilliance by life’s fiercest storms.”
Today I can say I accept my grief as a blessing. I can walk deep into my sorrow and find the Father there. I rest there in the Father’s embrace of compassionate comfort (2 Cor. 1:3). I have a deeper understanding, a deeper experience of who He is and how much He loves me. I am filled up by his love for me and I can comfort others, to the glory of the Father.
“The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped.” (Ps. 28:7)