Austin's Blog

I’ve been thinking a lot about grief, child loss, and ministering to others in the midst of it. One thing that stands out to me is the realization that not everyone will, can, or is meant to be there for you during your grief. I imagine child loss like the sinking of the Titanic. The ship of our lives has been irrevocably damaged by the largest iceberg you can imagine, and life is forever changed. The ship is broken in two and sinking.

At the moment of the crash, some friends and family members are like those who shoot flare guns into the dark, starry sky and help you out of the icy water into the limited rescue boats. Their work is necessary and vital for your immediate survival. But you don’t stay in those lifeboats for long. Other ships see the flares from far away, hear the distress calls, and travel great distances to scoop the lifeboats up to safety. They mend your wounds, clothe you, and guide you through the long, icy journey back to dry land. These are the friends and family members who stay for the long haul. They refuse to let you freeze or sink.

You need both groups to survive and move toward healing and hope again. Walter Brueggemann writes, “If we can get access to our pain in a community that we trust, our pain, almost always, is bearable because the trustworthiness of our brothers and sisters will hold and is reliable, and will not let us fall through.” Without this, healing is unlikely—or it happens much more slowly. Dietrich Bonhoeffer also reminds us, “The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged… He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.”

This is not to say that the strong, sturdy, and perseverant shepherds in our lives replace the Good Shepherd. They are means of healing, not the Messiah. Often, they cannot solve the problem—nor do they need to even try. Sometimes being present is all that is needed. Jerry Sittser writes in A Grace Disguised, after losing his mom, wife, and daughter in a car crash, “They [his caregivers] said very little. Their presence mattered more to me than their words. They became a refuge for me, a warm and safe home during a long and brutal winter. Being with me, not doing anything for me, met my greatest need. They never tried to solve my problems, which were mostly unsolvable anyway. They never offered answers, which I had to come to on my own. They never put me on a timetable, which would have met their needs, not mine. They were simply present, the only visible object I could see on the horizon. That was their gift to me.”

At times, I feel bothered that some people I expected to be ships turned out to be fleeting flares in the night. Their ministry to us was momentary—helpful but brief—right after we buried our precious son. But I need to let that go. The Lord raised up who He raised up. He used who He used. He provided who He provided. Instead of resenting those who didn’t remain, we must instead choose to bless and thank God for those who courageously stayed through the long, icy haul back to the shoreline.