For The One Who Feels Stuck in Grief

After my son Max died, I struggled to perform even the most basic of daily tasks. I couldn’t clean my house or cook. I had no interest in putting on makeup or doing my hair. I couldn’t imagine sitting in my office attempting to do anything productive at work ever again. I felt like I was moving in slow motion, trying to escape a quicksand that threatened to pull me under. And if you asked me to think about anything bigger than these basic, day-to-day activities, I felt paralyzed, completely incapable of movement.

Grief has a way of convincing us that we are stuck, broken. It whispers in our ears that something irreparable has been damaged inside of us, that we will never again be the person who can get up in the morning, make the coffee, and do the things. If I was asked to do anything in those earliest days of my loss, I became overwhelmed and just wanted to crawl back into bed.

But even in my deep grief, when I felt perpetually stuck, when I couldn’t figure out how to put one foot in front of the other, God was working. He was active. He was moving.

In his greeting to the church of Philippi, the Apostle Paul says, “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6 ESV). As I began to dwell on this verse and the good work Paul writes about, I realized that I’ve always conflated it with Paul’s writing in Ephesians 2:10 (ESV) where he says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Both of these passages use the phrase “good work.” But this is not the same good work. In Ephesians, we, the believers, are doing and striving. We are the ones producing these good works. They flow out of who we are in Christ and what He has done in us, but the impetus is on us to do the works. As a newly grieving mother, that felt oppressive to me. More things I should be doing but couldn’t.

It’s so easy to look around and see the way others are channeling their grief into these beautiful, productive, eternity-altering pursuits. They start non-profits, create memorial funds to support grieving parents, write books, become bereavement doulas. It can feel discouraging to see the incredible ways other women have stepped into the good works God has prepared in advance for them when we can barely put one foot in front of the other.

But Philippians 1:6 is different. Here, it is God doing the work, not me. I am passively receiving the action of God on my behalf inside me. In his commentary, John Gill says of this good work, “[it is] not external work done by men but internal work done by God; [by] His good will and pleasure; His grace and mercy are the moving cause of it.” This is the work of sanctification, the continual renewing of our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit at work inside of us.

When we feel stuck and incapable of motion, we can take comfort in knowing that our God is ever at work. He is using every moment, every struggle, every triumph to make us more like Him. You don’t need to lift a finger. Rest in the promise that He is doing a mighty work in you and will continue that work until the day we are united with Him in perfection—that same glorious day when we see our children face to face.

I love the way The Message paraphrases this verse: “There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.”

Sister, there is a flourishing finish in your future. The fruit of the work that God is doing in your heart and life will eventually be evident on this side of eternity. One day, you will emerge from this fog and do the good works He has prepared for you. Those works may look like the ones I described earlier. But they may not. They may simply be sitting beside another grieving mother and holding her hand as she takes the first steps of her grief journey. They may be doing the hard and holy work of raising your living children to know and love the Lord. They may be loving your husband more deeply because you have weathered these storms together.

But most importantly, there is a flourishing finish awaiting you when you set foot on the other side of the curtain, made whole and perfect in Christ!

Sam is a graphic designer and marketing professional in Frisco, Texas. She and her husband, Spencer, have been married since 2011, and have two children in heaven, Max & Baby Martin, and one in their arms, Lachlan. They enjoy serving in their church, building community, and restoring their 100 year-old home. Sam is in two book clubs and can always be found with a book in her purse and a warm beverage in her hand.

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