The Grace that Sustains You & Grieving with Hope

January 22, 2011

The Grace that Sustains You 

In an email exchange with Daniel’s Godfather Steve this week he commented, “I remain in awe of the grace that sustains you.”  I am in awe as well since I know that this grace is really the only thing that keeps my head above water, indeed sustaining me when my grief is stirring and creating turmoil in my head and heart.

That said, I struggle to comprehend what grace even means. 

In my current experience, grace is the quiet sense of hope that I find in my broken heart.  Even though I miss Daniel with a palpable desperation and a deep yearning, I also have this calm hope and confidence that he is literally “in good hands” in that realm we call heaven.   Even though at times I become very angry and bitter in my heart over this enormous loss, I also find a real sense of gratitude that Daniel was in our lives for 18 wonderful years and that he made and left such a huge mark on the lives and hearts of so many family members and friends who loved him and enjoyed his presence.

Smart theologians describe grace in loftier terms I am sure, but for me, grace is what God gives me to balance out the pain, anger, and anguish when it rises in my heart.

Grieving with Hope

We received a very sweet note yesterday from Jerry Sittser.  The note was added to Jerry’s post-holiday letter which in itself was rich and wonderful as it described Jerry’s recent marriage to Pat and the activities of their now blended family of five young adult children.

But the handwritten note at the end of the letter took my breath away as Jerry, the wise sage who has lived with enormous grief for almost two decades simply said: 

 

“How strange that Daniel would be graduating this year.  I pray that you are grieving with hope.  I still miss Diana Jane every day.”

Jerry acknowledges that he still misses his departed daughter every day, even after almost 20 years.  I imagine that this happens in small but likely profound ways as he remembers her almost two decades after her death.  And yet, he prays that we are grieving with hope – what a simple and very profound statement and prayer from this remarkable man. 

What does it mean to grieve with hope? 

In Where Is God When It Hurts? Philip Yancey simply defines hope as the belief that “something good lies ahead.”  So grieving with hope might mean to grieve while believing that something good might still lie ahead of us in this life and in the life to come.

In that larger context, I suppose that it also means that even though we deeply miss Daniel, our hope, our confident desire, and our trust is that Daniel is in that heavenly realm and literally living a much better life than we could have ever provided for him or even hoped for him on this earth.  And, since we believe in this same loving and forgiving God who came to us in the incarnation of Jesus, we also have the ultimate hope that we will see Daniel face to face again someday.

All that said, we still miss him ever day and grieve this loss, though thankfully we can grieve with hope. 

Thanks be to God for these indescribable gifts of dreams, grace and hope, and for these sweet reminders from dear friends!