Comfort for Times of Loss

Onlin

Sampele Edition

COMFORT FOR TIMES

OF LOSS Reflections From

COMFORT FOR TIMES

OF LOSS Reflections From

Acknowledgements: Cover Photo: Stock.xchng/Zixuan Fu, Yantai, China Scriptures taken from Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission.

All rights reserved worldwide.

Managing Editor: Anne Cetas • Assistant Editor: Becky Knapp Editors: Dave Branon, Tim Gustafson, Alyson Kieda, David Sper © 2018 Our Daily Bread Ministries • All rights reserved. • Printed in the UK.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

SOMEONE WITH US

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HEN LIFE TAKES what matters most, where do we turn? Our losses bring a swirl of emotions— pain, agony, anger, regret. Huge questions loom over us and go unanswered. We ache for genuine comfort.

Yet even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, there is hope. On these pages, the writers of Our Daily Bread Ministries share a collection of stories that, like friends who come to call during trouble, can come

alongside us. Beginning with Luke and Jodi Veldt’s deeply personal account (below), we’ll trace the journey of doubt and faith, despair and hope. It is the story of humanity—and of a God, well acquainted with grief, who reaches out to comfort us.

When Everything Changed AS FAR AS WE COULD SEE, Allison was a normal, healthy thirteen year old, active and happy—until that day we found her slumped over the table. Her words slurred as she told us that her legs were numb, that she couldn’t lift her head.

We had her at the hospital within fifteen minutes. A flurry of activity; an anxious wait in the hall; a conference with a nurse.

The surgeon spoke with us. The situation couldn’t be worse, he said.

People from our church came and waited with us. Our friends and family around the world prayed. That night, a friend called. “She’s gone,” I told him.

Jodi and I are Christians. Since we were young, our goal has been to learn about Jesus, to live in a way that would reflect His presence in us, and to share our faith with others. We each have spent more than forty years in that life—attending church, listening to sermons, studying the Bible. We have watched God take care of us in all sorts of difficult circumstances.

Yet on one of those first nights after Allison’s death, Jodi asked me through her tears, “Is it all true? Is any of it true?

Is there a God, and is Alli with Him? Oh, it needs to be true.”

I had no answer. I had been feeling exactly the same myself. Forty years of faith, distilled in that moment to a single paralysing thought: Is any of it true? Is there really a God? My doubt caught me by surprise. There is no promise in the message of Jesus Christ that His followers are exempt from suffering. And it’s not as if I were unacquainted with death, even the death of children. I’ve cried with and comforted others who have suffered that kind of loss; and I’ve had my faith strengthened as I saw God’s presence in their lives. So “Is it all true? as terrible as the death of a child Is any of it true? is, objectively speaking it should Is there a God, and not have challenged my faith. is Alli with Him?” But there was nothing objective about the death of this child. This child was Allison. Our own Allison. And losing her somehow changed everything.

LUKE VELDT Adapted from Written in Tears: A Grieving Father’s Journey Through Psalm 103, by Luke Veldt, © Copyright 2010 Discovery House, Grand Rapids, MI. Used by permission.

Follow more of the Veldts’ story in the weekend reading that follows Day 5.

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

John 11:30–36

Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

35 Jesus wept.

36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

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Notes

D AY 1

Finding Comfort in Times of Loss JESUS CRIES WITH US

A Time To Cry

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ad had been battling a debilitating disease for years.

As I knelt by his bed and watched him take that last breath, the tears I had choked back came like a flood.

I hadn’t sobbed like that since I was a young boy. As my brothers and my mother and I hugged and prayed, the finality was overwhelming.

That event helped me appreciate the John 11:35 significance of this brief verse: “Then Jesus wept.

Jesus wept” (JOHN 11:35). It is such an incredible statement—the Son of God wept! He knew better than anyone in the world about the reality of heaven. He was the source of all hope in a future resurrection. And yet Jesus cried! He loved His friends Mary and Martha and Lazarus so much that when he went to Lazarus’ tomb “he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” (V. 33). Jesus truly felt their heartache.

When someone we love dies, we struggle with a wide range of emotions. We may question the wisdom or the goodness of God. When death comes after long-term suffering, we struggle to understand why the Lord waited so long to bring relief. We begin to think of God as distant, untouched by our sorrow. We ask, “Why?” Then we read again, “Jesus wept.” Those words reassure us that God isn’t far away. He’s deeply touched by our anguish.

When death invades our lives, remember: Jesus shed tears too.

KURT DEHAAN

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle.” —PSALM 56:8 NLT

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

Psalm 42

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.

5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God. 6 My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon— from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

8 By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”

10 My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 11 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God. 1

Notes

D AY 2

Finding Comfort in Times of Loss GOD UNDERSTANDS

Faith and Doubt

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hen my close friend Sharon was killed in a car accident, my heart broke. Life’s circumstances hurt so much that my faith was often mixed with doubt. I cried out to God with these questions: Lord, I don’t understand You. Why did You allow this death?

“Have you not heard? The Lord is the Psalm 42:11 everlasting God. . . . He will not grow tired Why, my soul, are or weary, and his understanding no one you downcast? can fathom” (ISAIAH 40:28). “‘My thoughts . . . Put your hope are not your thoughts, neither are your in God, for I will yet ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.” praise him.

(ISAIAH 55:8).

Lord, You are beyond my understanding. But I still wonder, have You turned Your back on the world?

“God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne” (PSALM 47:8) and “he rules for ever by his power” (66:7).

Lord, I do believe You are ruling this world, but do You care about the pain? Have You forgotten to be good?

I am “forgiving and good” (PSALM 86:5).

Yes, Lord, You have been good to me in countless ways, including listening to my doubts and questions about You. The answers God gives us in His Word may not take away our sadness, but we can always rest in the truth that He is wise, ANNE CETAS sovereign and good.

Those who walk with God love to help with the needs of others.

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

2 Corinthians 1:3–7

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

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Notes

Finding Comfort in Times of Loss WE CAN COMFORT EACH OTHER

D AY 3

A Life Remembered

“D

addy, help me.” Those were the last words Dianne and Gary Cronin heard their daughter say as she struggled to breathe. Kristin, 14 years old, died suddenly—just two days after saying she didn’t feel well. A strep infection attacked her body on Thursday. By Saturday, she was pleading with her daddy to help her.

Before Kristin died, I was scheduled to speak at her family’s church. In God’s timing, I stood before the congregation the day after her funeral. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Kristin was one of those vivacious God . . . comforts teens who loved Jesus and lived for us in all our Him—and whose sudden death leaves us troubles, so that we with a million questions. Because I went can comfort those through a similar loss of my own teenage in any trouble. daughter, I was able to offer some small comfort to this stunned and grieving church. First, I said, we must recognise God’s sovereignty. Kristin’s life was the exact length God intended (PSALM 139:16). Second, I asked the church never to forget her family. Whether it’s two months or five years later, the family will never ‘get over’ losing Kristin. They will never stop needing Christians who care and remember.

In times like this, don’t forget that God is in control and DAVE BRANON that He wants us to be a comfort to others.

In every desert of despair God has an oasis of comfort.

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

Job 23:1–12

Then Job replied: 2 “Even today my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy in spite of my groaning. 3 If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! 4 I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. 5 I would find out what he would answer me, and consider what he would say to me. 6 Would he vigorously oppose me with great power? No, he would not press charges against me. 7 There the upright can establish their innocence before him, and there I would be delivered for ever from my judge.

8 “But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. 9 When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

10 But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. 11 My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside. 12 I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.”

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Notes

D AY 4

Finding Comfort in Times of Loss GOD’S LOVE IS STILL SURE

Questions Remain

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n 31 October 2014 an experimental spacecraft broke apart during a test flight, and crashed into the Mojave Desert. The copilot died while the pilot miraculously survived. Investigators soon determined what had happened, but not why. The title of a newspaper article about the crash began Job 23:10 with the words “Questions remain.”

Throughout life we may experience He knows the way sorrows for which there are no adequate that I take. explanations. Some are catastrophic events with far-reaching effects while others are personal, private tragedies that alter our individual lives and families. We want to know why, but we seem to find more questions than answers. Yet even as we struggle with “Why?” God extends His unfailing love to us.

When Job lost his children and his wealth in a single day (JOB 1:13–19), he sank into an angry depression and resisted any attempted explanations by his friends. Yet he held out hope that someday there would be an answer from God. Even in the darkness Job could say, “[God] knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold” (23:10).

Oswald Chambers said, “There will come one day a personal and direct touch from God when every tear and perplexity, every oppression and distress, every suffering and pain, and wrong and injustice will have a complete and ample and overwhelming explanation.”

Today, as we face life’s unanswered questions, we can find DAVID MCCASLAND help and hope in God’s love and promises.

When we face unanswered questions, we find help and hope in God’s love.

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

Psalm 16:1–11

Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.

2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” 3 I say of the holy people who are in the land, “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.” 4 Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more. I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips.

5 Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure. 6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. 7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. 8 I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, 10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. 11 You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

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Notes

D AY 5

Finding Comfort in Times of Loss GOD IS OUR REFUGE

Grandpa Sneaked Out

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y cousin Ken fought a courageous 4 year battle with cancer. In his final days, his wife, children and grandchildren were in and out of his room, spending time with him and sharing special goodbyes. At a brief moment when everyone was out of the room, Ken slipped into eternity. After the family realised that he was Psalm 16:9 gone, one young granddaughter sweetly My heart is glad, remarked, “Grandpa sneaked out.” and I my tongue Psalm 16 was a favourite psalm of rejoices; my body Ken’s that he had requested to be read at also will rest his memorial service. He agreed with the secure. psalmist David, who said, “Lord, you alone are my portion” (V. 5). With the Lord as his refuge, David also knew that the grave does not rob believers of life. He said, “You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead” (V. 10).

Neither Ken nor anyone else who knows Jesus as Saviour will be abandoned in death.

One moment the Lord was with Ken here on earth; the next moment Ken’s spirit was with the Lord in heaven.

Because of Jesus’s own death and resurrection, we too can rise one day (1 CORINTHIANS 15:20–22). With David we can say, “You will make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (PSALM 16:11).

ANNE CETAS

God is our treasure now, and being with Him in heaven will bring pleasures forever.

IN THE PIT

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ITHIN A FEW DAYS after Allison’s death we were weary, and weariness soon became our normal state. We had a hard time sleeping at night—and an even harder time finding a reason to get out of bed in the morning. We had no energy for some of the simplest tasks and little motivation to attempt major projects.

I can’t describe our emotional state better than to say that each morning, one second after we awoke, we had the wind knocked out of us by the thought, “It wasn’t a dream. Alli is gone.” It is like a kick in the head. It knocks you off balance; it takes away your desire to move on. We didn’t wish we were dead, but we didn’t really care if we kept on living either.

DESPITE MY NEWFOUND DOUBT , the first place I looked for answers to my questions and comfort for my grief was the Bible. This makes sense if you consider the Bible a supernatural book. Where better to turn in times of trial and doubt if not to the Word of God? If, on the other hand, you think that the Bible is just one of our many feeble attempts to search for God or to create Him after our own image, you may find it incomprehensible that I was turning to it—for I was asking myself whether any of it was true. Remember, though, that the Bible was for me the

most natural place to look for answers. And I didn’t want to reject it blindly any more than I wanted to accept it blindly.

I didn’t really want to reject it at all. But easy answers didn’t appeal to me either. Allison was gone. What does the Bible really say about that? Are the answers it offers authentic, trustworthy? A drowning man will grasp at anything that looks like a lifeline; I wanted to be sure that the one to which I was clinging was the real thing. And so I read the Bible, more thoughtfully than ever before.

As I had been surprised by my doubt, I was surprised now by what I found in the Bible—not one surprise, but a series of surprises.

I was surprised to find how directly the authors of the Bible I was surprised spoke to my own situation. now by what I These weren’t detached found in the Bible— philosophers and theologians; not one surprise, they were real people who but a series of struggled with real doubts and surprises. pain, as I had. I found in these writers a community of fellow sufferers.

I was surprised that I had never seen that before.

I was surprised to find that I was learning more about God in my sorrow than I ever had in times of joy. “The Bible was written in tears,” said A. W. Tozer, “and to tears it will reveal its best treasures.”

ONE OF MY FIRST SURPRISES in the days after Alli’s death came from Psalm 103, a psalm of King David. David knew what it was like to be in the pit. He not only lost three of his

children, he also shouldered the burden of knowing that he was at least partly responsible for each of their deaths. Here, halfway through Psalm 103, David describes God’s love: For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,

so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed,

he remembers that we are dust. (VV. 11–14).

When I read this psalm in the past, I had always noticed two illustrations here for the infinite nature of God’s love: the distance between heaven and earth and the distance from east to west. Now, though, it occurred to me that the next line of the psalm—“As a father has compassion for his children”—is not the start of a new paragraph or idea but is, in fact, the third in the series of images. As the last item on the list, it’s the most important, the one the others lead up to; it’s the most familiar and yet the most dramatic expression of God’s limitless love.

“As a father has compassion on his children.” As I read this, I was struck by the implication that God shares my grief.

My thoughts about Allison are His thoughts. He loves her, too, even more than I do. He gave her special personality to her. Having given her life, He now mourns her death.

God is in this with me. He is not aloof, detached, controlling everything from afar, untouched by His own decisions. He doesn’t say, “You’ve got to suffer—never mind

why.” He is deeply involved, personally affected. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants”, another psalm tells us (PSALM 116:15).

And He knows how I feel right now. God knows what it’s like for a father to see his child die. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus cried from the cross, and His Father heard and did nothing. I’ve heard a lot of sermons that emphasise the price Jesus paid on the cross, totally separated from and abandoned by God. I don’t know that I’ve heard any that focus on what it cost the Father to turn away from His Son. How could He do it? I wondered. How could He hear His child cry for help and not respond? The words of John 3:16, a verse I’ve known by heart since I was three years old, now God knows what spoke to me in a new way: “For it’s like for a God so loved the world that he father to see his gave his one and only Son . . .” I child die. had never before understood so clearly what God’s love for the world cost Him. “This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 JOHN 4:9-10).

As high as the heavens above the earth, as far as east from west, as profound as a father’s love for his children.

It took the death of my daughter for me to begin to understand the love of God.

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

Psalm 39

I said , “I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth while in the presence of the wicked.” 2 So I remained utterly silent, not even saying anything good. But my anguish increased; 3 The my heart grew hot within me. While I meditated, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue: 4 “Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. 5 You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure.

6 “Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be.

7 “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.

8 Save me from all my transgressions; do not make me the scorn of fools. 9 I was silent; I would not open my mouth, for you are the one who has done this. 10 Remove your scourge from me; I am overcome by the blow of your hand. 11 When you rebuke and discipline anyone for their sin, you consume their wealth like a moth—surely everyone is but a breath.

12 “Hear my prayer, Lord, Listen to my criy for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. I dwell with you as a foreigner, a stranger, as all my ancestors were. 13 Look away from me, that I may enjoy life again before I depart and am no more.”

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Notes

D AY 6

Finding Comfort in Times of Loss WE NEVER WALK ALONE

Travelling Companion

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looked up the members of my Bible college graduating class recently and discovered that many of my friends are now deceased. It was a sober reminder of the brevity of life. Seventy or eighty years, give or take a few, and then we’re gone (PSALM 90:10).

Psalm 39:12 The brevity of life makes us think about our end—the measure of our days I dwell with you and how fleeting they are, a feeling that as a foreigner, a grows more certain as we draw closer to stranger as all my the end of our lives. This world is not our ancestors were. home; we’re but strangers and travellers here (PSALM 39:12).

Yet we are not alone on the journey. We are strangers and travellers with God, a thought that makes the journey less troubling, less frightening, less worrisome. We pass through this world and into the next with a loving Father as our constant companion and guide. We have One who says, “I am with you always” (MATTHEW 28:20).

We may lose sight of father, mother, spouse and friends, but we always know that God is walking beside us. An old saying puts it like this: “Good company on the road makes the DAVID ROPER way to seem lighter.”

Our times are in our Father’s hand.

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

Psalm 31:9–18

Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.

10 My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. 11 Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbours and an object of dread to my closest friends—those who see me on the street flee from me. 12 I am forgotten as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery. 13 For I hear many whispering, “Terror on every side!” They conspire against me and plot to take my life.

14 But I trust in you, Lord; I say, “You are my God.” 15 My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me. 16 Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love. 17 Let me not be put to shame, Lord, for I have cried out to you; but let the wicked be put to shame and be silent in the realm of the dead.

18 Let their lying lips be silenced, for with pride and contempt they speak arrogantly against the righteous.

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Notes

D AY 7

Finding Comfort in Times of Loss WE CAN BE HONEST WITH GOD

Tissue Boxes

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s I sat in the surgical waiting room, I had time to think. I had been here recently, when we received the jarring news that my only brother, much too young, would not make it.

Psalm 31:14–15 And so on this day, waiting for news about my wife as she underwent But I trust in you, a serious surgical procedure, I wrote a let- Lord, I say, “You ter to her. Then, surrounded by nervous are my God.” My chatter, I listened for the calming pres- times are in your ence of God. hands.

Suddenly, news! The surgeon wanted to see me. I went to a secluded room to wait. There on the table sat two tissue boxes, conspicuously available. They weren’t for the sniffles. They were for cold, hard phrases like I heard when my brother died—“brain dead” and “nothing we can do.”

In such times of grief or uncertainty, the honesty of the psalms makes them a natural place to turn. Psalm 31 was the heart-cry of David, who endured so much anguish that he wrote, “My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning” (V. 10). Compounding that grief was the pain of abandonment by his friends and neighbours (V. 11).

But David had the bedrock of faith in God. “But I trust in you, Lord, I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands” (VV. 14–15). His lament concludes with resounding encouragement and hope. “Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord” (V. 24).

This time in the waiting room, the surgeon gave us good news: My wife could expect a full recovery. Of course we’re relieved and grateful! But even if she hadn’t been okay, our TIM GUSTAFSON times still remain in God’s capable hands.

When we put our problems in God’s hands, He puts His peace in our hearts.

You Don’t Have to Walk Alone

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hen you’ve suffered the loss of a friend or loved one, how do you find comfort in the midst of your grief?

This set of Bible reading notes from Our Daily Bread is designed to bring you words of comfort and healing as you walk through your journey of grief. Each reading has been selected to give you messages of reassurance, encouragement and hope. We trust that these short meditations and stories from those who have walked grief’s path will speak to your hurting heart—and will remind you that God sees your pain and is always with you.

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