Grieving with Hope

FACE TO FACE

Karis began writing this prior to the massive protests in the U.S. We thought its message fit with all what is currently going on in the U.S., and our prayers are with our friends who are asking how to enter in, grieve, lament and love in this season.

About three weeks ago we began to journey with friends who are going through an unspeakably hard time with their toddler son who has a life-threatening diagnosis. If everything was socalled routine, this would be incredibly hard, but the additional layers the pandemic adds to the situation feel crushing. The night of the initial diagnosis, I felt completely deflated. "It's too much bad," I said to Stephen, "there is too much bad right now." I was reminded of days gone by, during our season of miscarriage after miscarriage when I would crawl into bed at the end of the day and just ask Stephen to "tell me something good." How do we navigate the fine line between lament and despair? In a season when I already feel lower than usual, bad news really takes its toll.

Personally, I have experienced much freedom through Scripture to lament and cry out and to do so without qualification or short circuiting the lamenting process. It would be untrue to say that it is cut and dry—grieving and lamenting and despairing can be murky business. It can be hard to distinguish what is helpful and what is hurtful at times. In fact, I have often said, "What is the right action for one day, can be the wrong one the next.” And what I have learned is that so much of it has to do with our heart posture.

The other night I was despairing. When I couldn't shake the gloom at all, when it seemed like evil was winning, it was crushing. I went to bed and didn’t sleep very well (being third trimester pregnant doesn't help that either). I woke up the next morning, and as I began my morning routine, I heard a gentle voice say to me, "I love your friends you know. I love each of them so much. None of this is happening outside of my love." I tangibly felt a weight lift from me. It was a simple reality, but it was the truth I needed.

When I operate out of fear and the threat of all that can and does go wrong, it is debilitating. When I give more credence to the evil than to the good, to fear than to love, my vision is skewed, and I can be overwhelmed by the bad in an unhealthy way. The truth of God's love didn't take the pain of the situation away or lessen the sobering reality of how terrible it is, but it brought my feet back to stable ground; it allows me to grieve without despair. First Thessalonians 4:13 talks about this, "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope."

How is this possible? What distinguishes us in a way that we can face the harsh realities of this world, lament and not lose hope? Verse 14 answers this very question: "For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again..." There it is, I don't have to live in fear because Jesus has conquered death and darkness. I don't live with a question mark of doom hanging over me—I know who faced doom so that we may live. God's love is not a token thought, it is a tangible reality. The world is broken, and Jesus died to bring healing and restoration. These truths make me neither untouchable nor invincible but, as I look at Jesus, neither was he. In fact, he relinquished his heavenly throne to enter humanity and to be enveloped by the realities of this world, to have his heart ache and his body break. He wasn't stoic or blissfully unaware, he delved headfirst into the heartbreak of this earth.

Godly grief moves me into action—entering in with others and their losses, seeking wholeness and mercy, and ultimately to the act of getting on my knees and crying out to the One who holds all these things in his hands. Lament leads me to empathize, to carry some of the burden and, instead of trying to find a quick and easy silver lining, I look for what God might be doing in the darkness, straining my eyes for the first rays of dawn, as I know, they come.

One space of lament in this season has been how we see those around us who already had little to no margin now living in extremely hard circumstances. We have been in a semi-strict lockdown for almost three months and most of the measures were just extended for another 30 days. Coronavirus cases are ticking up, with cases in the triple digits and the economic impact felt deeply.

In the midst of all this, it has felt like our call to action has been straightforward. Care for those around us. This has included our teammates, friends, neighbors and, of course, specifically for Stephen, the Ambassadors family. In a time where we physically cannot go into many of the places that are hardest hit, the Ambassadors staff has an amazing network of coaches, and Stephen has been working tirelessly to equip and care for his staff and the community of coaches. It has been encouraging and hard. Daily I see him accept the limitations, resist fears, think creatively about the future (how do you do football ministry without actually playing it for potentially months on end?), fundraise for an office that he worked so hard to help make locally sustainable (thanks to all who have joined in this initiative) and continue to release all these things to the Lord.

It's another space where the rubber hits the road of living out the hope that we claim to believe in. This is not our ministry, our plans functioning our way. We don't just have to try harder and figure it out. What we actually need is to continue to slow down (seems ironic) and listen to him who is constantly leading us knowing that nothing in this pandemic is happening outside of his love, he loves all these people, all the Ambassadors staff, all the coaches, all of us more than we can imagine.

About the Author | Karis Rigby

Karis and her husband, Stephen, are College Church missionaries serving with Serge in Nairobi, Kenya. This spring the whole family celebrated Stephen and Karis’ anniversary with a wedding tea party. The Rigbys have two children and a third on the way.