“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. . . . Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life . . . ”
The pastor closes their Bible, casts you a gentle look, and begins to pray. A few minutes later, friends surround you, offering condolences, hugs, and promises of food. You nod and offer quiet thanks. A family member takes you home. What follows doesn’t feel like goodness or mercy.
Grief has been described in so many different ways: a bottomless pit, a black hole, a spiral, a nonlinear series of “stages.” When does it end? Where is God during all of this? Where was He when your loved one died?
In His Word, God offers answers. They won’t erase your sadness or anger today, but they can give you hope when you are stricken with grief and comfort when your heart is broken.
From a Seventh-day Adventist Christian standpoint, this article will explain: why grief exists, how God responds to grief, and what you can do to move forward with hope after the funeral of a loved one.
What to Do When You Are Stricken with Grief and Feel Abandoned
There’s a lot of truth attached to the Kübler-Ross model of grief, often called the five stages of grief. When a loved one dies, a cacophony of intense emotions invades your life, and these awful feelings tend to fall into four categories: denial, bargaining, anger, and depression. Sometimes, these stages mix, producing confusion, fear, and, at times, a gaping nothingness. Sometimes, a stage you thought you’d “conquered” reappears out of nowhere.
Understanding the science behind grief and all its stages can help you cope with death—but grief is never organized. And no matter how often you pray, read the Bible, go to church, or profess your faith, you may still find yourself crying on the floor, wondering: Where was God? No matter how many beautiful Bible verses were read at the funeral, you may still find yourself shaking with rage later that day, shouting at God: Why didn’t You do something?!
C.S. Lewis, a famous Christian writer and apologist, spoke often about God’s love and the power of faith—yet he also wrote boldly and vulnerably about the inexplicable qualities of death and grief. In a book he wrote after losing his wife to cancer, he penned:
“Tonight all the hells of young grief have opened again; the mad words, the bitter resentment, the fluttering in the stomach, the nightmare unreality, the wallowed-in tears. For in grief nothing ‘stays put.’ One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral? But if a spiral, am I going up or down it? How often—will it be for always?—how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, ‘I never realized my loss till this moment’? The same leg is cut off time after time. The first plunge of the knife into the flesh is felt again and again.” (A Grief Observed, p. 46)
Again, grief is never organized.
Yet when you are stricken with grief, angry at God, and perplexed by the promised fifth stage of “acceptance,” you can cry, rage, and take each next, messy step with full confidence in this biblical truth:
God does not treat your grief as irrational. He is mourning right beside you.
The prophet Isaiah described Jesus as “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). The gospels depict this aspect of Jesus’ life with vivid detail:
“My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.” (Matthew 26:38)
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46)
“ . . . being grieved by the hardness of their hearts.” (Mark 3:5)
“Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it.” (Luke 19:41)
“Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:44)
“He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. . . . Jesus wept.” (John 11:33, 35)
As Jesus encountered sin and death again and again throughout His earthly ministry, He was stricken with grief again and again. As He hung on the cross, He, too, felt utterly abandoned. And today, as we continue to suffer loss and ask in agony, “Where was God?” He cries with us and asks us in love, “Will you look to the cross?”
For it is on Calvary and Calvary alone where you can find the answers you’re desperately searching for.
Where Was God When Your Loved One Died?
Just before He died on the cross, Jesus cried out:
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46)
Maybe you’re asking a similar question right now: My God, where were you when my loved one died? Why didn’t You heal them? Why didn’t You answer my prayers?
There’s nothing wrong with asking these questions, feeling abandoned, or even doubting God’s love. In fact, the horrid confusion caused by death proves exactly what the Bible says about it: death came from sin (not God), and sin is a mystery we cannot explain (Romans 5:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:7).
God wants you to pray for miracles, to cast “all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7)—yet He also tells us plainly that our understanding is finite, and He advises us strongly to keep eternity in our thoughts and prayers:
“Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven—what can you do? Deeper than Sheol—what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.” (Job 11:7–9)
“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18)
These verses don’t dismiss grief. Instead, they say, “In this world, you will be stricken with grief, and this type of pain cannot be reasoned away. You will ask, ‘Where was God?’ and may not like the answer. You may never receive an answer. But know this: The story isn’t over.”
As one Christian writer put it, “The Bible doesn’t promise to limit the infinite answers of God to our finite understandings.” Instead, God’s Word continuously points to God’s plan of redemption and restoration, made possible by the One who has already conquered death, Jesus Christ.
Before being betrayed, beaten, humiliated, and crucified, Jesus wrestled with the divine task ahead. Matthew 26 tells the story:
“Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, ‘Sit here while I go and pray over there.’ And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, ‘My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.’ He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, ‘O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.’ ” (verses 36–39)
The Son of God felt utterly abandoned and consumed by fear. God the Father watched His Son struggle and die.
God doesn’t just recognize your grief. He knows it. He’s felt it. He feels it now as He’s walking through “the waters” right beside you, ensuring they won’t overwhelm you (Isaiah 43:2). And He has a plan to help you keep going.
Life After the Funeral: Seventh-day Adventist Insights on How to Keep Going
Seventh-day Adventist pioneer and church co-founder Ellen White provides incredible insight into Jesus’ grief in Gethsamene:
“The sins of the world were upon Him. He was suffering in man’s stead as a transgressor of His Father’s law. Here was the scene of temptation. The divine light of God was receding from His vision, and He was passing into the hands of the powers of darkness. In His soul anguish He lay prostrate on the cold earth. He was realizing His Father’s frown. He had taken the cup of suffering from the lips of guilty man, and proposed to drink it Himself, and in its place give to man the cup of blessing. The wrath that would have fallen upon man was now falling upon Christ.” (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 2, p. 203)
Jesus grew “exceedingly sorrowful” before His death because He was bearing the weight of God’s hatred. Not hatred of Him, certainly. Not hatred of humanity, God’s beloved creation. Hatred of sin and its consequences. Hatred of death.
God never wanted you to experience death in any form. His Word calls death an “enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26) and repeatedly displays His blatant detest for it (John 11:38). In fact, one could argue that grief proves God’s intent. Pastor Tim Keller put it like this:
“Death was not part of God’s original design. We were not created to age, weaken, fade, and die. We were not created for love relationships that end in death. Death is an intrusion, a result of sin and our human race’s turning away from God. Our sense even now that we were made to last, that we were made for love without parting, is a memory trace of our divine origins. We are trapped in a world of death, a world for which we were not designed.”
This is the first insight: Grieve! Before, during, after the funeral. Years later. Decades later. Whenever you need to. Grieve because death exists and it was never supposed to. Hate death! It’s the enemy.
The second insight on how to keep going after a funeral rests firmly upon one of Seventh-day Adventism’s most beautiful beliefs: resurrection and restoration. Because Jesus drank the “cup of suffering” intended for humankind, we can look forward to an eternal future where suffering has been outlawed and death has been banished—permanently. We can grieve and hope at the same time.
Seventh-day Adventists teach that Jesus will return to Earth, raise dead believers, gift all of His people immortality, and set up a new kingdom where there shall be no more funerals, no more grief, no more denial, bargaining, anger, or depression.
“He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces.” (Isaiah 25:8a)
“There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4b)
About this world, Adventist writer Stephen N. Haskell wrote:
“Eden and the new earth clasp hands. . . . The work, planned before the foundations of the earth were laid, is accomplished without an alteration, notwithstanding the introduction of sin. The only difference there will be, is in the strength of character which is developed during the journey through the valley of the shadow of death.” (The Story of the Seer of Patmos, p. 359)
The future that awaits us is even greater than Eden! Such is the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
“Such is the infinite depth of redeeming love” (p. 340).
How to Turn to God for Comfort When You are Brokenhearted
Paul wrote, “The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). Until that day, we will grieve, but we will not grieve without divine help. God promises to give the brokenhearted a special comfort.
“The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)
If you are stricken with grief, here are ways to turn to God for His promised comfort:
1. Approach God authentically.
Bring your tears, rage, and doubt before the throne of grace. God desires you, not “church you,” “work you,” or any “version” of you. You can speak with Him as a friend and fall into His embrace, even if you’re still angry with Him.
“I cried out to God with my voice—to God with my voice; and He gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; my soul refused to be comforted.” (Psalm 77:1–2)
2. Meditate on God’s present promises.
Read God’s Word and carefully study how He treats those who are grieving.
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)
3. Focus on eternity.
You may not feel hope yet, but the more you read, think, and pray about God’s ultimate plan for humanity, the more real it will become in your daily life.
“But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13)
4. Remember that your grief is not a lack of faith.
Grief is a natural response to an unnatural evil, and God promises comfort to anyone who experiences it.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)
5. Look to the cross.
As you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you may doubt God’s promises. You may ask, “Where were you, God?” and feel no hope in His plan. You may even question God’s love.
In those moments, look to the cross.
“When Jesus Christ was in the garden of Gethsemane and the ultimate darkness was coming down on Him and He knew it was coming, He didn’t abandon you; He died for you. If Jesus Christ didn’t abandon you in His darkness, the ultimate darkness, why would He abandon you now, in yours?” (Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter by Tim Keller, p. 216)
Related Articles:
Why the Cross of Christ Transforms the Meaning of Death
Grieving With the Hope of the Resurrection
What Does the Bible Say Happens After Death? From Death to Hope
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Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
