When Grief Strikes

Today, our family had to put down the dog that we have loved for 12 years. Her breed, the Soft Coated Wheaton Terrier is one of the best kept secrets among dog owners. She was a great dog and well loved and will leave us with many fond memories! I think the hardest part for me is seeing the affects that it has on my family as a whole. I say that because this has been the year from hell for our family. We have all been attacked and gone through the emotional stages that life often brings us but rarely is my first response to give God the glory. Here's a thought...When tragedy or hardships strike, do we immediately worship the Creator?

We all know the story of Job and the affliction he faced but I noticed something for the first time recently. In the first chapter, he is informed four times by four surviving servants of the loss to his oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels, servants, sons, and daughters. Then verse 20 says: At this, he fell to the ground and worshipped! Wait, what?! The very first thing he did after he received the horrible news of the tragedy that literally took everything from him was he worshipped God. I read that and think about the trails and hardships I have faced and rarely do I worship immediately. There are countless stories throughout the Bible that show men and women worshipping God immediately after tragedy. Jeremiah worshipped after God used the Babylonians to judge Judah, Habakkuk worshipped at the reality of his abandonment, David worshipped following the death of his child, and Jesus worshipped in the Garden right before he was crucified. The point is, our first response should be worship in the face of tragedy. Unfortunately for me, it hasn't been.

Grief however, is something we all will experience. Grief is normal and apart of the recovery process but our attitude in our moments of grief determine our worship. After a conversation with my friend Reggi, he explained that there are three responses when life hits rock bottom and I wanted to expand on them. Our first response is we either question God with why He allowed this to happen or blame Him and turn from our 'faith'. Sometimes things happen and we don't understand why, nor will we ever receive an explanation but know this: God is more concerned with your development as a believer than He is with delivering you from your circumstances. Our second response may be that we begin to understand that God knows what we are going through. He knows how we feel and therefore we see God as sympathizing with us. We are comforted by His grace and are able to persevere through our moments of grief. The third response towards grief is being able to sympathize with God. We often times forget of what Christ actually went through. We forget how bad it was for Him! We forget that the religious people didn't like him, that His message was ignored, and that He constantly was mocked. We forget that He experienced the betrayal of one of his disciples, a man that He loved and had experienced life with. We forget that He paid our penalty on the cross and suffered more than any of us ever will. Our response to the grief we experience and the hardships we endure should be that we now have an idea of what Christ went through. God, I thank you for the hard moments because it gives me a glimpse of what you actually endured! "Our grief should cause us to sympathize with Christ!"