Is grief good? Why does tragedy turn some folks ugly and makes others beautiful?

Why did the tragedy in King David’s life give us the Psalms, and the tragedy in Solomon’s give us only vanity. My dad lived some of his most effective years of ministry after losing his wife, my mom, in a tragic car accident 16 years ago.  On the other hand, there is a man I know who lost his wife and seems to have lost his very soul. 

Once Jesus said “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).  I used to think of this verse as a nice axiom roughly equivalent to “Blessed are they that skin their knees for they will get a lollipop” -- sort of a Christian version of karma to tell us it is ok when bad things happen because we will be cheered up later.

But . . . since bad things really do happen to all of us, perhaps Jesus isn’t saying blessed are those who have bad things happen to them, but blessed are those who mourn about those bad things.  It’s as if we have a choice to mourn or not mourn over the bad things we all face.

So how do you choose to mourn? 

After looking at about 15 other translations and the Greek, I discovered that the word “mourn” basically means “mourn,” so where else can I look?

Once when Jesus was discussing the tragedy of a man born blind, some folks asked him whose fault it was, his own or his parents.  Jesus said, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3).  Blaming and deciding whose fault it is – that’s not so important. That’s not mourning. The proper response to bad things involves your transformation, the exercise of the glory of God in you.

The same is true in Job.  They spend the whole book arguing about whose fault it is.  Job was right.  God says so at the end, but, that doesn’t seem to be the main point.  There is a work of transformation to be done in Job.  The climax in chapter 40 gets me every time. Job falls down with his hand on his mouth and surrenders all his theology and impeccable logic; then as if looking up through his tears he says, “I had heard of you, but now I have seen you.”  The man was correct before, but now he is transformed… comforted, blessed. 

What would have happened if Job had just accepted the explanation of his friends, or, for that matter, if they would have accepted his?  They would have been like a lot of Christians that say, “Just have faith and be happy,” correct but not comforted.

No, something tells me mourning involves more – perhaps silence, quite a bit of fog, some tears, not a lot of logic, no judgment, an emptying, an inner death. 

Then the Comforter comes.   

How do you walk through fog?

During my dad's last months, the question I kept coming back to was, "How do you watch a sunset?"  That question pulled together all the helplessness and beauty of those months.  Tears, quietness, worship, gratefulness, mostly just stillness, that seemed to be the only way to respond to that question.

Now I have a different question.  How do you walk through fog?

Grief feels like a fog. 

But why?

And what do you do about it?

Do you just quote some random scripture to try to cut the fog out of the way?

I was thinking that maybe grief feels like fog because it is more than just missing someone and being sad that they are gone.  There is something inside me that is gone as well.  There has been a strike at my own identity. That got me thinking.

If your wife, dies, are you still a husband?
If your husband, dies are you still a wife?
If your child dies, are you still a father?
If your father dies, are you still a son?

I remember dad wrestling with his new identity after mom died. "Widower" was not a word that he liked. It sounded like a person that you wouldn't take very seriously, someone you wouldn't want your children around too much.

Yes, we are mostly defined by our relationship to something or someone else, and death strikes a blow at that identity.

I remember vividly the first time I said good-bye to dad for the last time (I said good-bye on three different visits).  Dad's last words on that visit were, "You are a good man."  There were tears streaming down his face. And now there are tears streaming down mine just thinking about it. It was a holy moment not unlike the voice from the clouds as Jesus was baptized.

But now as I wonder through the fog, those words are fading.  Who am I now?  Am I a good man?  I don't feel like a good man.  At least 5 times a day I feel like cussing someone out.  My family is feeling abandoned.  No one would want to know the random dark thoughts that go through my head.  I don't feel like a good man anymore.  I feel more like a man on an ash heap, scraping soars with a potsherd.  I want to run to Montana by myself and never come back.  Perhaps Bellview is in my future.

Dad's last words to me seem like a distant echo.  Does he still believe it to be true?

The fog says no.
The world says no.
What does God say? 

Not sure.

All I see is fog.