The Gift I Never Asked For
by Megan Fate Marshman
“What would I have done if I couldn’t have grieved?”
I asked my dad this question when we were sitting in a Chick-fil-A, watching my boys tear around the play area. I honestly don’t know what I would have done if God had not given me grief.
Let me ask you this question: Have you let yourself feel the pain?
Because grief is a door into something I know God wants for you: Himself.
He’s the reward.
Not heaven but Him.
God desires that we desire Him. Heaven is not the goal, it’s the place we get to experience God. And I have never longed for God and more of what He longs for like this. I’m longing for peace. Deep, unaffected, untainted peace and delight. I look forward to laughter. I love laughing. Everything in me wants to see Randy again. But I know that my deepest longing is for someone of whom Randy was an image bearer: Jesus.
I’ve never wanted this more in my entire life, and it’s because of my grief. It has drawn me to Him. I needed grief, and I think you do too. In his book Holy Longing, Ronald Rolheiser writes,
What we have dreamed for our lives can never be. Thus we have a choice: We can spend the rest of our lives angry, trying to protect ourselves against something that has already happened to us, death and unfairness, or we can grieve our losses, abuses, and deaths and, through that, eventually attain the joy and delights that are in fact possible for us.
Alice Miller states this all in psychological language, but the choice is really a paschal one. We face many deaths within our lives and the choice is ours as to whether those deaths will be terminal (snuffing out life and spirit) or whether they will be paschal (opening us to new life and spirit). Grieving is the key to the latter.
There have been dark, hollow times when I’ve leaned toward the terminal. How could anything good come from this? I have to say “my late husband,” and I’m in my thirties. I haven’t gotten used to that. Maybe I never will. But, because of God’s mercy, I have experienced new life through grief too. I’m longing for God like I’ve never longed for Him. My boys and I have been lifted up in prayer and materially provided for. We’ve seen miracles. Our grief has opened us up to new life and spirit.
But even though this is true, it’s difficult to want grief. I can see everything that God has brought into my life through grief and still not want it. It’s a gift I never asked for. Even now, I tend toward wanting relief over grief.
God Brings Purpose to Our Pain
I’ll admit something embarrassing. I tried to make a grieving friend laugh while I was working on these thoughts. I’m serious. I was writing about grief, she walked into my office while grieving, and instead of just being present, of bearing witness to her sadness, I tried to shoo it away with a joke.
Here’s some good news: God doesn’t ever shoo away our pain.
It’s not that He doesn’t want relief for us; He just has greater plans for our pain. He wants us to get to relief, but eventually. In grief, we become more like Him. In our sorrow, we comfort others. We “get it” in ways that nobody else can. As we comfort, we find ourselves comforted too. God draws those who grieve closer to Him. “Blessed are those who mourn,” Jesus promised, “for they will be comforted” (Matthew. 5:4). Before the relief, He brings purpose to the pain.
Second Corinthians 1:3–5 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”
We want to be plucked out of the pain, but God wants to be present with us in it.
The Path to Healing Goes Through Grief
If we don’t grieve, we’ll look for relief somewhere else, and there’s a whole host of unhealthy options. Or we’ll get stuck at the stage we’re in and we’ll keep reacting to everyone based on being stuck in depression, denial, or anger. The truth is that we can’t heal what we are unwilling to feel. If we don’t acknowledge Him in our grief, we’ll live out of the stage we’re stuck in.
I like the idea that grief is the antidote to trauma. It’s the healthy response to loss. Trauma leaves us feeling stuck. Grief has the power to move us. Either downward into our hearts or upward to lament with God, and then ideally outward toward others as we allow them to carry our burden alongside us. Many shy away from grief, fearing it traps us, but avoiding grief is what keeps us truly stuck.
So talk about it. Even if it feels like you’re talking about the same thing over and over. God moves us as we talk about it. Research continually suggests that discussing trauma and grief is critical to healing and growing through it. James Pennebaker’s groundbreaking studies on the importance of talking about trauma reveal that expressive writing and verbal processing can lead to significant psychological and physical benefits, including improved emotional processing, reduced distress, enhanced immune system function, and greater overall well-being.
Submitting to God in grief meant opening up the grief and letting God use others. Eventually, I did start to give to others again. And it was different from how it had been before. I felt the words of Paul’s greeting in 2 Corinthians deeply: I could “comfort those in any trouble” with the comfort I myself receive from God. If you’re willing to go there with Him, if you’re willing to grieve, He will use the pain you’ve been carrying or maybe ignoring.
Adapted from Relaxed: Walking with the One Who Is Not Worried about a Thing by Megan Fate Marshman.
Relaxed
We often try to do a lot for God—without him. Relaxed is a call to let go of spiritual performance, reject our cultural tendency to live under pressure, and find freedom to walk with God and toward God, one gentle step at a time.
Learn More
I’m so impressed by your courage.
Thank you for your teaching on grief, it helps me understand the positive side of grief. I came to really know the Lord JESUS soon after my dear wife passed on some years back. I got such a huge relief in my heart and the joy of the Lord gave me the strength and energy to serve Him more and better. I have never looked back.
I needed this today……
Thanks for letting me know the benefits occurred in grief – drawing one nearer to God and building one’s faith. Also helping me know grief is not the end of life and that there’s life after grief.
My wife died July 9, 2024 from breast cancer on Hospice here at our home with our three adult children. Trauma vs. grieving. Thank you for clarifying the characteristics between the two. Getting stuck in the trauma not allowing one to grieve properly. I am concerned about my daughter. This will help me guide her to a better place. I never considered grief to be a gift. But it has brought me closer to God through Jesus. I must get your book. Thank you.
A new ‘divorcee,’ a title I never expected I’d fall under nor would be part of my life, but now is. I think I needed to hear that. Strange timing, or perhaps not so. I just awoke from a dream which compelled me to all but beg the Holy Spirit to tell me whether it was a simple instance of Freudian-style wish fulfillment, or whether it was God assuring me of what my ex-spouse really wants. In the dream, someone with whom I was collaborating on a book project, another male, a designer, while going over an illustration he didn’t particularly like, let slip: “She wants you back.” Immediately, I drilled him with: “What did you just say?” Hesitantly, and as I became more urgent in my request for clarification, he responded: “She wants you back. She wants you back” I was at once hopeful and incredulous, and as I moved to ask him how he could know this, I woke up. And now I read that God wants us to grieve while one expert says we can never have our desires. So I’m not sure what the takeaway is in my case. But the timing of seeing this post, right upon awakening from an emotionally laden dream, is clearly remarkable. You can be sure I’ll be going over this article for some time to come.
What a wonderful article! I facilitated GriefShare at my church. I’ve heard some Christians say “My loved one is in Heaven“. This is wonderful but we who are left behind still need to grieve.
Blessings! This is such a timely word. I lost my father July of this year to cancer and while I have been strong through it all, I have found myself in a very difficult position filled with sadness and frustration. Wanting to put it all behind and move on with life however, God is not allowing me to do that!!! I find myself sitting in my car most days crying and asking God why do I feel this way until I surrender it all to him and find peace and rest in him, knowing that he has my best interest at heart.
This came at a time when I truly needed it. Suffering through multiple losses and feeling like I won’t make it. Pretending that I’m OK when I know I’m not. I needed this.
This article just confirmed my belief in the suffering we have to endure for God’s purpose to manifest in our lives. God knows what to use to get our attention. God knows where and how to break us, so He (God) can rebuild us beautifully. As a Christian, I strongly believe that God allows affliction for His children to teach them what no man can teach them. And we can only be saved and reach higher level of purpose when we see our hurts as a training season. If we look at our affliction as punishment and get bitter, God’s purpose can not be manifested in our lives. I do agree that affliction is a gift for us to find our purpose in life. 🙏
God Bless you for sharing this message. It changed my life and perspective, reassuring me in my grief. Thank you, Megan.
I lost my dad back in 2022 and someone held me back from being at his funeral. I couldn’t say that he is forgiven, that I love him, and that I miss him. God came and helped me, but the grieving is on and off. Then this summer, I lost my son. This is so devastating I cannot describe 😢 😭 💔. All I have now is God. My son isn’t dead. It was the devil who came and took my son away from me. We have been living in a spiritual warfare for a long time. But since this summer, the Holy Spirit has been like a flame in me, comforting me. God is near me with help and love.
I lost my mother six years ago…the mourning is still there, but God allowed me to depend more on Him in my suffering. Thank you for the article that inspires me in a difficult moment in my life.
My husband passed on in October of 2019. This years marks 5 years. I am still grieving and ask the questions of why? What are God’s plans for me? This past weekend my emotions got the best of me where I cried longing for my husband. I cried and prayed. It was a blessing for me to come across this message in my email. Thank you 🙏🏻 for sharing.
I never understood grief. Never thought of it as a gift. Thank you for this message. I am in South Africa, how do i get your book?
I thought all was lost when I lost my job due to illness but I have come to realise that God is always with us and has got a purpose behind the pain we are going through. May God’s Grace be with us all the time as we live this precious life.
I lost my granddad last month and it has been hard on my mom and the rest of my family. My grandma has had the hardest time because she also lost her dad to COVID-19. I am trying to understand what is going on this year. I just don’t get why my family has to go through this.
I needed this. Thank you.
A year ago in June, my mom passed away from cancer. She knew about it, but kept it to herself. In less than 12 hours after receiving the news, she was gone. I don’t understand why she didn’t tell us. It could have been that our dad was still alive and had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for over 10 years and that she wanted us to focus on continuing to care for him. And exactly 105 days later, my dad passed away. I am not angry about their passing away. I am thankful to God for ending their suffering! But this past year has been the hardest thing I have ever had to face. No one wants to talk about it and feel that I should move on and get on with my life as usual! But I don’t know how. My life has been forever changed. I’m finding myself getting angry at those who tell me to move on but I’m stuck, literally drowning in my grief and depression. I feel lost and alone and scared that I will never be able to stop grieving for them! Please help me🙏 to understand how there can be joy amidst so much pain.