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We are excited to share a four-part series from our beautiful friend Ami. She first shared this article on ReviveOurHearts.com Ami’s stories on our website have touched many widows, young and old. Join us each week for this series. Here is part 2. You can read part 1 here.

The Side Effects of Loss and the Gospel That Heals Them

Almost ten years have passed since my first husband died, and I’ve long left the valley of the shadow of death. I was almost crushed, but now I walk again bearing jagged yet radiant scars. I’ve processed and processed and processed; I know the beauty of a life restored.

Recently I needed surgery to have a painful but (thankfully) benign ovarian cyst removed. Concurrently, my husband has an unexplained mass on his arm, and we’re waiting for MRI results and surgery. Medical concerns still raise a prickle of fear followed by its close cousin, worry.

Given that my first husband died in an emergency department after symptoms were missed and mistakes made, it makes sense that I’m more cautious medically. That fear can still so easily overtake me is unexpected, however.

Almost a decade later, death still affects me. I’m surprised there are still grief layers to unpack.

Four Things to Cling to When Grief Rises Up

As I reckoned with these layers of grief, it occurred to me that the same things I had clung to at the beginning of my grief journey, I still need when grief arises unexpectedly.

1. An eye toward eternity.

When he has swallowed up death once and for all,
the Lord God will wipe away the tears
from every face
and remove his people’s disgrace
from the whole earth,
for the Lord has spoken.

On that day it will be said,
“Look, this is our God;
we have waited for him, and he has saved us.”
Isaiah 25:8-9

We weren’t created to experience death, and there’s nothing normal about it. We grieve because things aren’t as they were meant to be.

But one day all that’s broken in the world will be no more, even death. The weight of suffering is heavy, but it will not always be so. I can trust that God will accomplish all His plans. Eternity awaits.

I can trust that even if the bottom falls out again, real life without sorrow and sickness awaits. As C. S. Lewis believed, this world is but a shadow. We anticipate the real country and the rest of the story.

All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has ever read; which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. —C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Compared to the glory of eternity, even crushing sorrow becomes light and momentary (2 Cor. 4:17). We will say, “Look, this is our God; we have waited for him.” (Isa. 25:9).

Join us in the next few weeks as we share the next three things when grief rises up.