It’s the “What if?” questions that tend to haunt us the most.
“What if I had called sooner?”
“What if I hadn’t delayed the test the doctor ordered?”
“What if we had buckled her seat belt?”
When we find ourselves consumed and obsessed by the ‘What if?’ questions, we’re likely grieving the loss of something. We ask ‘What if?’ questions when trying to understand what has happened. ‘What if?’ is often accompanied by its cousin, ‘If only.’ We unknowingly engage in this kind of internal dialogue to avoid the pain of loss. Social scientist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, would identify this as the ‘bargaining’ stage of grief.
Much of life is grief. And although I’m hesitant to be so blunt, stating this stark acknowledgment feels honest and authentic. Of course, not all losses are bad, and not all losses are untimely or uncalled for. Still, loss leaves a mark on each of us and shapes us in good and bad ways. Anxiety—or the fear of losing something—also plays a unique role in our lives.
We know that our faith speaks to the question of grief and loss.
When Paul identifies all the people that Jesus appeared to after his resurrection, he is telling us how God’s redemptive action in raising Jesus from the grave matters. The resurrection is more than just a good ending to Jesus’s life and ministry. The resurrection is the penultimate moment in the epoch of human history. Without question, the truth of the resurrection preaches that God can redeem anything… even the hard, cold facts of death. The resurrection of Jesus proves God’s love for us and overturns any doubt that may have formed about God’s sovereignty and might. The resurrection reveals how God is always at work for good in a world that conspires to destroy, break down, and fail.
When God raised Jesus from the dead, our eternal salvation was assured, but our outlook in this life—here and now—was changed, also. The truth of the resurrection makes the ‘What if?’ and ‘If only’ questions unnecessary because God is powerful enough to work for good through anything. Yes, anything.
To be human is to feel pain. But pain is not our forever home because God has triumphed over the greatest of losses—death. If death has been “swallowed up in God’s victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54), then so, too, will the losses we incur. Internalizing this truth gives us space to grieve and move through the bargaining stage to accept the losses we experience.
As the Psalmist details, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
Joy comes in the morning because of God’s redemptive work in raising Jesus from the grave.
So we coach ourselves—and one another—through song when we walk through the shadow of the valley of death.
“When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul
It is well (it is well)
With my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well with my soul”
—By Horatio Spafford
No, these words do not take the sting and hurt of the pain away. But this wonderful hymn provides us with the strength we need to know that because of God’s work in Jesus, it will ultimately be well with our souls.