I Didn’t Know

I didn’t know a human could hurt so much.The doorway to my bedroom seemed to grab me and bring me to a sudden stop. Staring at the spot where I watched my wife take her last breath three weeks earlier, I melted into another uncontrolled sobbing session. My daily wandering around the house like a 2-year-old child looking for his pacifier seemed endless.

This time I ended my emotional session by thinking of deep hurts other people I knew had suffered. I saw them differently now. I remembered my mom. Wow, I thought, she really had life tough when my Dad died suddenly! Suddenly my situation did not feel as harsh.

For my whole life I only remembered those difficult years surrounding my dad’s accident from an 11-year-old’s point of view. But now, because of my own loss, my heart ached for my mom. I admired her in a whole new way.

The day of my Dad’s accident Mom was a 30-year-old pregnant mother of four other kids, of whom I was the oldest. She lived in a home with no indoor plumbing and a pot belly stove that burned coal or wood for heat. Winter had only delivered half her force by that sunny February day that changed our lives forever.

My mom’s grief seemed to cause our young lives to stop. She spent a lot of time in bed and only got up to do the minimum care for her small children. One week after dad’s funeral, she delivered my youngest brother.

A week after my Mom came home from the hospital with my baby brother we got an unexpected visit from my dominant grandmother. She saw the huge mess the house was in and found my mom in bed, as usual. Unfortunately, Grandmother responded in a harsh fashion. Instead of displaying kindness, she delivered heavy commands to mom, forcing her to get up and stop mourning.

So Mom got up. Later in life, I realized that caused her to “stuff” her grief inside, and that caused a lot emotional damage.

I believe that experience, along with the busyness of life, kept a raw sore in my mom’s soul. It would show up when other pains of life came along. Her healing had been aborted, and she suffered from that for years.

I saw Mom pull out dad’s picture and weep each time hard emotional events would come. The most vivid memory of that I have was during her divorce from the man she married three years after my dad’s death.

Difficult days for mom continued that first year. With no husband, she still had a farm to manage. She didn’t have a clue how to do that, plus care for five kids. Though our neighbors came to help plant in spring and then harvest a crop in summer, she lost the farm. We had to move into the small nearby town. The only financial income Mom qualified for was government assistance. Three hundred dollars a month did not go very far, even back then. Very often, the money I got from mowing lawns was used to buy bread and gas.

These experiences had two effects on me.

First, I realized that the healing process after experiencing loss is vital. As much as I wanted the hurt in my soul to go away after my wife died, I really needed to allow the sorrow of loss to teach and heal my soul so that in time I could live and be whole again. I determined to find people to talk to who could understand and guide me through this process.

New insight came to me about a Bible verse I knew. 2 Corinthians 1:4 points out, “God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.” I realized that I was one in need of comfort from others, those whom God had already comforted in their sorrowful experiences. So, I began looking for people to help me talk through my pain so I could experience the comfort of God myself.

The second benefit from mom’s experience was the understanding that my loss was not the end of life for me. Others like my Mom have had more difficult things happen to them. My pity parties had to go!

Admiration for my mother also grew. You see, Mom firmly believed in Jesus Christ. Her personal relationship with Him showed, even through all her pain. I have vivid memories of her playing the piano and singing old hymns at the top of her lungs. She would sing with a big smile. She used the reality of Christ’s presence in her life to encourage her own spirit. And it showed. I learned from her that I needed to do the same and make a choice to grow.

Another thing helped that might not seem so obvious. Church attendance was not an option for anyone in our family; it was a way of life. Even during all the pain and change we experienced, Mom always took us to church. There she found amazing support from our friends and relatives. Making a habit of attending church was not only a wise choice for her benefit, but it formed my young life as well. Even though things were tough, I always got encouragement from the people at church, and it seemed to ease and, at times, erase some of our pain.

Mom was not the only example of finding encouragement in the midst of pain and loss. King David in the Bible experienced many losses in his life. I Samuel 30: 6 tells us, “David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.”

Of course, the first thing David had to do was to make the Lord his God. That is not a long and involved process. It’s just the simple act of faith saying that you believe Jesus is God’s Son and that He came to earth to die for your sins. But death didn’t keep Him down! He lives forever, and He wants you to live forever with God too. That happens through trusting Jesus and giving your life to Him.

Think about it. This Christmas we celebrate God’s greatest Gift — Jesus Christ — who came to reunite every single person (regardless of race, status, or whether male or female) back to Himself. God wants relationship with you so much He was willing to go through the pain of major loss so that you could be brought back to Him, forgiven and comforted by God Himself. And in the process He kicked death in the teeth! Now, no one has to die forever. There is life after death with Jesus Christ.

I don’t know if you have pain in your heart or a song on your lips, but I hope you have Jesus in your life. If you do, I know you will make it through whatever tough things come your way.

My mom did, I did, and you will too.

David Knapp is a long-term missionary with New Tribes Missions, a father to eight and grandfather to twenty-six. His book, I Didn’t Know What to Say, is forthcoming. Find out more at www.griefreliefministries.com