Thoughts on Grief and Hope a Week After Easter

Please note: This article contains references to suicide.

I found out on Easter Monday that a counselee I worked with years ago took her life on Easter night. There are simply times when words fail. What do we say? What do we pray? What does God say? I have been ministered to by three different places in God’s word this week as I have mourned with those who mourn.

Psalm 88 is a surprising psalm, especially for those who, like me, are not from faith traditions that sing through the Psalter. These are God’s words for God’s people to sing corporately. I read the Psalms on repeat, and when I land here again, I am always surprised at how honest, raw, and without immediate resolution they are.

“I am overwhelmed with troubles
    and my life draws near to death.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
    I am like one without strength.

I am set apart with the dead,
    like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
    who are cut off from your care.”

Psalm 88:3-5

These words were true for the people of Israel, true for the church, but as Christopher Ash points out in his commentary on the psalms, they reach the peak of their fulfillment in the mouth of Christ. He is the Man of Sorrows. He knows.

I’ve also been reminded of Romans 8:26-27:

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

It is comforting to me that God the Spirit, who has command of every language, groans for his children to God the Father, to God the Son. He is groaning for a believing family as they sit, still reeling with the unexpectedness and depth of their loss, groaning with them as they grieve.

As I have walked with my own family and friends and also with women in the counseling space this past week, I’ve been especially mindful to ask God to work and will and, yes, intercede for them because I am again reminded of how often I do not “know what to pray for as I ought.” And I am asking him to do things in them that will be light to them when it is very dark.

Finally, in reflecting on hearing the Easter story again this past week, I was moved by my pastor’s description of Peter’s grief turned to joy. He recounted Peter’s failure and inevitable regret, imagined his thoughts, “I didn’t want it to end this way.” And it didn’t. And because of the empty tomb…still empty this week, some two thousand years later, it doesn’t have to end that way for us either. God help us believe that resurrection means something for all the places in our lives that seem beyond hope. God, help me trust that you are always at work in the dark, even when I can’t see.