Grief Can Pull Spouses Apart (but God Can Hold Them Together)
Husbands and wives often grieve the same loss in very different ways. Here is how couples can love one another well when sorrow comes between them.
Explore grief
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Invisible Grief
There is no path through this life that does not involve at least some measure of grief. This world is so broken that at different times and in different ways, grief affects us all. Some grief flows from what we loved and lost but other grief flows from what has never been and may never…
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The Dark Shadow on the Short Grave
As the great Friend of children stooped down and leaned toward the cradle, and took the little one in his arms and walked away with it into the bower of eternal summer, your eye began to follow him, and you followed the treasure he carried, and you have been following them ever since. And instead…
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Grief Can Be So Lonely
I am often asked what churches and individual Christians can do to care for and comfort those who are enduring times of grief. It is a question I am always glad to receive and one I am always glad to attempt to answer. And there is a lot individuals and communities can do to bring…
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Let’s Hear It For the Second Parents
While today we tend to associate step-parents with divorce, in previous centuries they were almost exclusively associated with death and with either widow- or widowerhood. In an era in which lifespans were shorter and, therefore, a greater number of parents died while their children were still young, there was a distinct and honored role for…
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You Are Still a Mother
There is no path through this life that does not involve hardship. There is no path through this life that does not involve sorrow and loss. One of the most common sorrows, the most common losses, is that of a child who dies through miscarriage or stillbirth. So many parents are familiar with the agony…
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Three Years Later: What I Miss Most
Today marks the third anniversary of the day Nick left us—the third anniversary of the day he arrived in heaven. It has been some time since I’ve paused with fingers on keyboard to collect my thoughts and deliberately think about him, about me, about my family, and about our grief. But the Lord, through the…
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The Gap Between Our Greatest Grief and Our Greatest Joy
My heart has often been gripped by one of the stories Luke tells from the life of Jesus. He tells of Jesus arriving in the town of Nain just as a funeral procession is making its way toward the tombs nearby. This was an especially tragic funeral, for the man who had died was “the…
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Does Nick Send Me Signs?
It’s a question I have been asked many times since Nick went to heaven. It’s a question that has been asked by some who profess faith in Christ and some who do not, by some who believe in the God of the Bible and some who believe in more of an eastern notion of spirituality.…
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Flowers Springing Up in the Rain
In the past couple of years I have learned more about cemeteries than I would ever have cared to know. I have learned about purchasing plots and commissioning monuments. I have learned about proper etiquette and how different cultures relate to their dearly departed in very different ways. I have learned that a grave offers…
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What the Canyon Echoed Back
He told me of a day he had awoken sick in his heart, sick in his soul. He didn’t know what to think, he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to believe. After all those years of marriage, all those years of joy, all those years of living life together, his wife…
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A Prayer for the Bereaved
Father in heaven, I acknowledge that you are the one who bestows good gifts and you are the one who recalls them again. It is by your hand that each of us is brought to life and by your hand that each of us is called into death. You are the one who gives and…
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As if God Had Ever Made an Atlantic Wide Enough…
As we go through times of suffering and sorrow, we inevitably come into contact with those who would seek to comfort us. Some offer true help and true hope while others, unfortunately, do not. In this short but sweet quote, Theodore Cuyler reflects on what we need most in our times of affliction. There are…