the question of death is not if, when or how it will come for us all but instead…how will we deal with it when it comes for those we love.

As someone who has had many loved ones die over the last decade or so, I have asked the same question that many of us have.

Though it wasn’t much of an ask as a demanded answer, not-so-dramatically shouted into the heavens. “Why God, why did you take them from me?”

It never helps to have scriptures like Hebrews 9:27 “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment,” Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, saving those crushed in spirit.” Or Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” quoted to us because it doesn’t give us an answer to that question.

Instead, it gives us another one. “Am I going to hell when I die, I don’t feel comforted, though I am in mourning and God doesn’t seem to be close to me, where did he go?”

I have learned to look at death in a different way.

God gives us many opportunities to turn to him and cast our burdens upon him. He gives us many opportunities to trust him, lean on him and love him. The death of someone close to us is just another one of these.

Before the fall of mankind, we were supposed to be immortal. We were never supposed to have to deal with sickness and death. These two things amongst many others are just consequences of Adam and Eve’s actions. They are not punishments, they are merely the results of the decision that was made by God’s original man and woman.

If we go to God with the pain of loss in our hearts, and on our lips, he will help us. He will draw near to us as the above scriptures denote.

We cannot go to him in an accusatory fashion, though. We cannot go to him in anything but humility.

If we decide to go to him in any way other than this, we will suffer the pain of loss longer than is necessary.

God loves us. He wants to comfort us. He wants to repair the hearts that are broken by loss, but we must let him do so in his own time and in his own way.

-mb