Dr. James White speaks on the text of Colossians 3:1-4:

1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Original article by Pastor John Piper found a grieving mother, who recently had given birth to a stillborn son, wrote to me asking for counsel and comfort. The team at Desiring God thought this letter might be helpful to some others, whether other mothers who have lost infants, parents who have lost young children, or perhaps even more broadly.

Dear _____,

This loss and sorrow is all so fresh. I hesitate to tread into the tender place and speak. But since you ask, I pray that God would help me say something helpful.

First, please know that I know I don’t know what it is like to give birth to a lifeless body. Only a small, sad band of mothers know that. I say “lifeless body” because, as you made clear, your son is not lifeless. He simply skipped earth. For now. But in the new heavens and the new earth, he will know the best of earth and all the joys earth can give without any of its sorrows.

I do not know what age — what level of maturity and development — he will have in that day. I don’t know what level of maturity and development I will have. Will the 25-year-old or the 35- or the 45- or the 55-year-old John Piper be the risen one? God knows what is optimal for the spiritual, glorified body. And so it will be for your son. But you will know him. God will see to that. And he you. And he will thank you for giving him life. He will thank you for enduring the loss that he might have the reward sooner.

God’s crucial word on grieving well is 1 Thessalonians 4:13: “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.” Yours is a grieving with hope. Theirs is a grieving without hope. That is the key difference. There is no talk of not grieving. That would be like suggesting to a woman who just lost her arm that she not cry, because it would be put back on in the resurrection. It hurts! That’s why we cry. It hurts.

And amputation is a good analogy. Because unlike a bullet wound, when the amputation heals, the arm is still gone. So the hurt of grief is different from the hurt of other wounds. There is the pain of the severing, and then the relentless pain of the gone-ness. The countless might-have-beens. Those too hurt. Each new remembered one is a new blow on the tender place where the arm was. So grieving is like and unlike other pain.

There is a paradox in the way God is honored through hope-filled grief. One might think that the only way he could be honored would be to cry less or get over the ache more quickly. That might show that your confidence is in the good that God is and the good that he does. Yes. It might. And some people are wired emotionally to experience God that way. I would not join those who say, “O they are just in denial.”

But there is another way God is honored in our grieving. When we taste the loss so deeply because we loved so deeply and treasured God’s gift — and God in his gift — so passionately that the loss cuts the deeper and the longer, and yet in and through the depths and the lengths of sorrow we never let go of God, and feel him never letting go of us — in that longer sorrow he is also greatly honored, because the length of it reveals the magnitude of our sense of loss for which we do not forsake God. At every moment of the lengthening grief, we turn to him not away from him. And therefore the length of it is a way of showing him to be ever-present, enduringly sufficient.

So trust him deeply and let your heart be your guide whether you honor him one way or the other. Everyone is different. Beware of blaming your husband, or he you, for moving into or out of grief at different paces. It is so personal. And what you may find is that the one who seemed to recover more quickly will weep the more deeply in ten years. You just don’t know now, and it is good not to judge.

May God make your grieving a bittersweet experience of communion with Jesus. Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been beheaded, “he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself” (Matthew 14:13). So he knows what it is to go with you there.

We do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize. He was tested in every way as we are — including loss.

Grace to you and peace.

Affectionately,

Pastor John

I found this to be profoundly moving – by R C Sproul, Jr.

Life is liturgy. Habits are holy, I have noticed already, for the passing of my precious daughter Shannon has left me without my tempo. Because of her frailty four times each day Shannon had to be fed. Four times a day she had to be given her water and her medications. Those times come each day and I not only ache for her absence, but I grow dizzy, not knowing where to turn. Serving her was our rhythm, the ticking of our grandfather clock.

While all liturgies are holy, some are more holy than others. While all move us, only one takes us to our end, our destination. When we come to the Lord’s Table we are not merely stopping to remember and contemplate the suffering of Jesus for us. We are not just looking backward, but we are moving forward. We come to taste eternity, for at the table we draw near to Him; we feast with Him. It is not just a miracle in our midst, but puts us together right in the midst of The Miracle, God in the Flesh.

My Shannon, though her faith was obvious to all who knew her, was never able to verbally profess that faith. Because she could not speak she could not speak of her love and need for Jesus. Because she could not profess her faith she was not allowed to eat the bread and drink the wine. Though our Lord is delighted to work through means, to draw uncommonly near through common bread and common wine, He is not so constrained. He did not look to Shannon from a distance, and wish there was something He could do. He is mighty to overcome.

Which is why I added to The liturgy my Liturgy. Whenever and wherever we celebrated the Table of our Lord I kept Shannon close to me. Though she could not take the bread of life, I spoke to her the words of life. I would every time whisper two precious truths into her ear, “Shannon, Jesus is here sweetheart. And Jesus loves you.”

Four days ago as I write Shannon walked through the vale, and through the veil. Yesterday we laid her body to rest. Today, however, we will meet again. Today the Holy Spirit will lift me and my children up into the heavenly places, to the true and eternal Mount Zion, to the souls of just men, and moms and little girls made perfect. Today the church militant and the church triumphant will be one, and will feast together. Today He will draw us to Himself, and we will be one.

Today, for the first time, I will hear Shannon’s voice. At that table, at that feast, in the midst of that liturgy. I, profoundly disabled though I am, will be there. Jesus will feed me. And Shannon will whisper in my ear, “Jesus is here Daddy, and Jesus loves you.” Because He does. World without end. Amen.