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After losing his mother, the author reflects on death’s ugliness, God’s sovereignty over our days, the refining power of grief, and the unshakable Christian hope of resurrection.

When the momentum shifted from mum being sick and hoping she would get better to then realising that she wouldn’t be with us for much longer, many people offered different words of encouragement in the face of losing someone we love. Some helpful and wise; others, although well-meaning, not so helpful and wise.

Here are some thoughts of my own, regarding people dying and the grief of loss. It’s an experience we all have or will soon have. It was a hard road leading to Mum’s death, and it’s one so many others can relate to. The moment she breathed her last came as a relief, as much as it came with sorrow.

The morning after Mum had died, 13 October 2024, the sun came up, and I had a realisation that the world keeps spinning and going around the sun.

My mum was fantastic. A beautiful woman. But the reality of our lives is, the world carries on without us in it, as it did with mum. Time doesn’t stop, life goes on; we just miss the person who was once with us.

Our lives are not as significant as we may think they are while we are here. Very few of us play the role of Martin Luther, Moses or Abraham Lincoln. None of those names that stick out as history-altering characters influenced me the way the loved ones in our personal lives influence us.

Although the world goes on, the neighbours are mowing their lawn, and the turtle tank needs cleaning. It’s with a heavy heart and an ache of missing someone so valuable that we go about our day, the same as before, just with someone missing.

Grief and sorrow cut deep for all of us who lose loved ones, but I’ve also learnt some lessons over the last twelve months. Here are four of those lessons.

Death is Ugly

It cannot be romanticised. Everyone who is born into this world faces the reality of death. We hate to talk about it. We hate to acknowledge it.

We know there is something not right about it. It’s not the way things should be. Death is a consequence of sin, sin being the rejection of God.

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because they wanted to replace God with themselves. They wanted to rule their own lives.

Because of this rejection of God, starting with Adam and Eve, we were removed from the Garden of Eden.

“He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

God banished him from the Garden.

The result of sin is being banished from paradise with God in the Garden of Eden, and the reality of that existence is that people die. It’s ugly, but it serves as a reminder that Christ came to defeat sin and death, and He did. Until the new heavens and the new earth, it’s the reality we live and die with.

Our Days are Numbered

Mum lived every day she was intended to on this earth. Not a day more or less. God determines the length of each of our lives.

Nothing about our existence is random; from our birth, our death and everything that happens in between, falls within God’s wisdom and providence. The significance of this is that our lives are not ours to control. Each breath and day is a gift entrusted to us.

“A person’s days are determined;
You have decreed the number of his months
and have set limits he cannot exceed.” —Job 14:5

I had one of my childhood pastors say to me that you realise in the final moments of death that we are less in control of when we pass than we think. I didn’t understand him in the moment, but as I reflect, it makes sense. The body can be so capable and willing to fight an illness or injury, but a person departs this life. Or, on the contrary, they can be so feeble of body and mind, but seem to live forever.

Maybe we are less in control than we believe.

Mum wasn’t scared of death. She did her best to stay healthy and present, but it wasn’t her time to leave earth… until it was time. The realisation that we are not in control of our days on earth offers us a moment of perspective. Knowing the brevity of life pushes us towards what really matters, things of eternal significance and knowing the heavenly Father.

I am better off, because Mum died

If I had a magic wand, or if I were God, my Mum would still be here, and there would be a lot less temporary suffering and grief in the world. Or would there?

Fortunately, I am not God, and Mum did die. To claim that I know what is good, better than God, is for me to try and be God. I am convinced of God’s goodness. Even though I cannot see it, the reality is, it has to be God’s good intention for us to experience the loss of our loved one. Who am I to question the goodness of God?

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which You have set in place,
what is man that You are mindful of him,
the son of Man that You care for him?” —Psalm 8:3-4

We are left with no choice but to trust in the goodness of God. Who am I to question Him in what is good and right for His people?

When Christ prayed that not His will but God’s be done, He was resigning over to the fact that God knows what is good and what is right for those who love Him. Jesus is trusting His heavenly Father, despite the reality that it means having the outpouring of the cup of wrath, judgment and abandonment for the sins of many.

It’s because of Christ’s obedience and entrusting of His future and circumstances over to the Father’s will that He was able to bear the sins of the world, and we are able to stand in His resurrection and forgiveness.

How often do we pray for God to relieve our pain and suffering and then complain when he doesn’t, when the reality is, His will may involve grief and loss? To say otherwise is to believe in the prosperity gospel and challenge God’s goodness.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” —Romans 8:28

Our grief isn’t like that of someone without hope

“Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.

According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”
—1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

I’m not wanting to make an eschatological argument about the way things will conclude when Christ returns. The fact that Jesus is coming back doesn’t mean our grief and loss suddenly don’t hurt… it does. Grief is real, and the fact that I miss Mum doesn’t change.

Paul’s letters are as pertinent as when they were first written. As believers, although we grieve, it is not without hope.

Some of the well-intended advice I received was, “It never stops hurting, losing a parent”; “You learn to grieve silently”; “Her legacy lives on through you, her children.” My mum didn’t have a “legacy”; she lived as a fallen human being, humbly for Christ.

We can simultaneously grieve but be so thankful that we get to see them and others again one day. I’m even more excited that I get to be with the heavenly Father, and there won’t be suffering or death any longer. I do not need to wallow in her absence, because I know where she has gone.

Mum’s experience of suffering in this life is nothing but a memory from whatever occupation she is doing in heaven (probably gardening to the glory of God). The time we spend missing her on this earth will pale in comparison to the time frame of eternity that we will be together, all of us as God’s family in Heaven. Our faith is in Christ’s death and resurrection, and our hope and what we are waiting for is His return, when He will restore all things as new.

A verse mum and all of us clung to in the final few weeks:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” —Revelation 21:3-4

We grieve, but we have an everlasting hope because of Christ. Let’s encourage one another in these things.

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Image courtesy of Adobe.