Q: Is It Un-Christian to Grieve?
This Q&A series is intended to help you take steps forward in wisdom. Lay your questions before Scripture with us; find in the ashes that wisdom “will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown” (Prov. 4:9). What questions about grief, God, or the Bible do you have right now? Contact us here.
When I first looked at this question, my automatic reaction was: No. Definitely not. But as I thought and prayed about it, my answer changed to both “no” and “yes.” While it’s not un-Christian to grieve, it is un-Christian to grieve in the way the world grieves. We’ll be discussing two different types of grief—the grief of the world and the grief of the believer.
Loss Means Grief
When someone you love dies, you grieve. It doesn’t matter who you are—Christian or non-Christian—grief is the natural, human response. The loved one’s absence leaves a void. For an unbeliever, that void is often fed with virtually anything to numb the pain—temporary fixes to fill the emptiness. For a believer, we turn to Christ in our grief.
We see in Scripture that even Jesus grieved:
“He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
Isaiah 53:3a NKJV
“Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, “Where have you laid him?”
They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”
Jesus wept.”
John 11:33-35 NIV
Because Jesus Himself grieved, we know grieving is not un-Christian. Jesus felt the full weight of our sin and sorrow on the cross. He also knew what it was like to lose someone He cared about—Lazarus. Although, Jesus knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, so I believe His tears were for the grief of Mary and Martha. It pained Jesus to see their sorrow. Christians are not robots. Being a Christian doesn’t mean all our emotions other than joy disappear. As Christians, we still experience a wide variety of feelings, except our grief is different in a significant way. We grieve with hope.
“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 NIV
How Hope Makes All the Difference
When we grieve with hope, we recognize that death has not won. We acknowledge that Christ has overcome death, and we will be reunited with our loved ones who are in Christ. When we grieve with hope, two things are prevented from happening:
- Falling into despair
- Making our baby our “idol”
When I looked up the definition of grief, one of the synonyms listed was despair. This is where the believer’s grief and the unbeliever’s grief part ways. For an unbeliever, death is the end. There’s no heavenly eternity, so all future is lost. But for the believer, death is only a temporary separation—a “goodbye for now,” but a promise of “hello” forever.
We grieve, but with hope, and that makes all the difference.
Despair is the complete loss or absence of hope. After I lost my hope baby, I felt that complete loss. But because Christ resides in my heart, hope remained. When I wanted to give into despair, Jesus reminded me of His truth.
“He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.”
Psalm 40:2 (NLT)
Christ did this for me! He didn’t allow me to be overcome with grief or be drowned by my sorrows. God brought people into my life to lift me up and walk alongside me. One specific way He did this was through Hope Mommies. This group is different from other grief groups. For Hope Mommies, the focus is not on what we’ve lost but on the One who formed our babies and the hope that awaits us.
Memorials Are Not a Shrine
It’s easy to make our baby into an “idol” we “worship” because our love for them is, rightfully, so deep. For my daughter Kinley’s funeral, we had purchased a purple bear. Afterwards, this bear sat on the top shelf in our room next to a shadow box that had Kinley’s handprints and footprints in it. I remember my then 2-year-old son pointing to the bear and wanting me to get it down for him to play with. For a while, I kept telling him “no.” It was Kinley’s bear, and I didn’t want it messed up. But then one day, I gave in to his pleading blue eyes and let him hold it. As I watched him hug the bear, I could picture Kinley hugging the bear. I decided that bear had no business collecting dust on a shelf, but that it was meant to be played with and enjoyed. My son eventually outgrew the bear, but my youngest daughter has now claimed it as her own. This bear has been well loved.
I wanted to honor Kinley by taking the bear off the shelf so that it could bring joy, instead of keeping it on the shelf as a solemn fixture. It’s certainly not wrong to have keepsakes and reminders of our hope babies! But letting that bear come down from the shelf that was a practical way for me to take to heart the lesson that my memorial items are not a shrine to my daughter—because I do not worship her through my grief—and that my daughter does not live encapsulated in my memorials or grief because she lives right now in heaven with Christ. Seeing that bear bring joy to others reminds me that God has created us for more than grieving.
Created to Point to Him
So, yes, it’s important to let ourselves grieve. But as Christians, we are to grieve with hope. We know that death isn’t the end. We choose to not let grief lead us into despair or become an act of worship to our hope babies. We choose to claim God’s promises and live our lives with our eyes fixed forward instead of behind. Even in our grief, we are to be set apart from the world. We point others to God with the hope we have in Him. In doing this, we honor God and create a legacy of light for our hope babies that points to Him.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
1 Peter 2:9
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John 1:5
- Stephanie
Hope Mom to Kinley
Stephanie Blanks is an elementary school teacher turned stay-at-home mom. She is married to Matt and has four children: Lyston (7), Kinley (who went home to Jesus in 2011), Levi (4), and Leighton (2). Stephanie enjoys singing in her church praise band, running, reading, and spending time with her family.
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