Austin's Blog

How do you survive? How do you make it after such a devastating loss or after an intense bout of suffering? One piece of advice I gleaned from Elisabeth Elliot is simply to “do the next thing.” After experiencing a debilitating loss, your capacity, energy levels, and “want to” are diminished. As they say, grief is hard work. It is taxing and overwhelming. The best advice is to simply do what you know you already should be doing. Do the simple and necessary tasks, however small or short, that it takes to survive. C.S. Lewis advises, “Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.” Cry while you decide what to do and then simply put one foot forward and do the next thing.

There’s fear, insecurity, and worry moving forward in your grief and sometimes that fear does not go away very quickly. However, the task or call to “do the next thing” remains the same. Elisabeth Elliot says, “Sometimes fear does not subside and one must choose to do it afraid.” If we wait to continue living or carry on until we feel it, we will be crippled into immobility. We must act and the feelings will come later. You live and survive by doing the next thing. Elliot often quoted an old Saxon poem that emphasizes doing the simple tasks laid before us:

Do it immediately; do it with prayer;

Do it reliantly, casting all care;

Do it with reverence, tracing Christ’s hand

Who placed it before you with earnest command,

Stayed on His omnipotence, safe ‘neath His wing,

Leave all resultings. Do the next thing.

What are we to do as Christians when the darkness does not lift and the thick fog of grief remains even as we do what is next before us? How do we go on when we are daily eating the bread of affliction (Isa. 30:20) and seemingly cannot taste and see that the Lord is good (Psa. 34:8)? Richard Fuller writes, “In fierce storms, said an old seaman, we must do one thing; there is only one way: we must put the ship in a certain position and keep her there. This, Christian, is what you must do. Sometimes, like Paul, you can see neither sun nor stars, and no small tempest lies on you; and then you can do but one thing; there is only one way. Reason cannot help you; past experiences give you no light. Even prayer fetches no consolation. Only a single course is left—you must put your soul in one position and keep it there. You must stay upon the Lord; and come what may—winds, waves, cross-seas, thunder, lightning, frowning rocks, roaring breakers—no matter what, you must lash yourself to the helm, and hold fast your confidence in God’s faithfulness, His covenant engagement, His everlasting love in Christ Jesus.” We must simply put our soul in one position, keep it there, and wait on the Lord.