The Art of Grieving Well

Dannah Gresh: After her teen son died, Elizabeth Mitchell learned something valuable.

Elizabeth Mitchell: To use that black cloud that moved in, that depression or anxiety or fear, rather than recoil from it, to see it as a prompt to pray and worship, almost as if it’s an alarm clock. I’m low, I’m discouraged, I’m fearful, now is a perfect time to worship.

Dannah: You’re listening to the Revive Our Hearts podcast for January 16, 2024. I’m Dannah Gresh. Our host is Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets Them Free.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: The death of a child brings a unique kind of pain. I watched my mother go through that many years ago as my twenty-two-year-old brother was killed in a car wreck. There’s nothing like that kind of pain. It’s something no parent ever wants to go through. But in our fallen world, many do.

Maybe you’ve experienced it or you know someone who’s gone through it. If so, you know the agony, the profound sadness, even at times perhaps questioning the goodness of God.

Well, yesterday on Revive Our Hearts, Elizabeth Mitchell shared some of those emotions that she felt when her son James died at the age of thirteen. If you missed it, I want to encourage you to listen to yesterday’s program on the Revive Our Hearts app or at ReviveOurHearts.com. I think it will touch you deeply.

Elizabeth is back with us today to help us learn the art of grieving well. Here’s my cohost, Dannah Gresh, talking to Elizabeth Mitchell.

Dannah: Elizabeth, if someone were sitting here that’s walking through the same kind of grief that you have had to endure, what would be the first piece of comfort and advice that you would give to her?

Elizabeth: I would tell her that she doesn’t need to understand or have answers to her questions. That the best thing to do, even with her questions, is to turn her face in God’s direction and cry out to Him and ask Him to carry her through or carry him through, and to just envelope her in the knowledge that He is there. He is not indifferent to her pain.

Psalm 27, a familiar Scripture, 

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid? (vv. 1–2 NKJV)

He is sufficient. He is capable. I can speak my fears to Him even if I can’t do it with others. So let Jesus in, and let His Word in. I can’t stress enough to other people, even portions of the Scripture you might not understand as you read His Word, it is a balm. It is strength. It is oxygen, as I mentioned yesterday. He is the bread of life. He is living water. He has not abandoned you any more than a loving parent abandons any child that they love.

You move toward a child when they’re hurting. Satan loves for us to feel as if we are abandoned when we are in great challenges. He loves to make us feel separated from our heavenly Father, and that is a lie.

Our Father in heaven is perfect. When His children are hurting, He is never closer or more present in their life. The same way as any loving parent knows to turn toward their child, our Father turns to us.

Dannah: I’m listening to you say that, and I just can’t help but think that someone is listening and saying, “I don’t believe you. I’m mad at God. I don’t know if He’s there. I’m mad at the words of Scripture. Why would a good God take my child, take my marriage, take my life purpose, my life path? Why would a good God allow me to have a parent who has abandoned me? How can I understand a God who doesn’t abandon when I have one, a parent, who has?”

What do we do with those questions, those . . .

Elizabeth: Heavy questions.

Dannah: Yes.

Elizabeth: You ask them, but don’t put your back to your only source of help. You ask this God that you’re doubting, or this God that you think has done something terrible. But you keep asking Him to show Himself. Or ask Him to give you the faith to believe that He is there. Or to send somebody into your life that knows your situation and can give you some guidance that you need at the moment.

Ask Him the hard questions, knowing you’re not going to maybe get an answer that you like. Without faith, He says, “It is impossible to please Me.” We want to walk by sight, and that only happens in eternity. We have to walk by faith. I have to believe that this God whom I might just be getting to know or this God I have no idea who He is.

Nothing else is working in your life, my dear friend that’s hurting. All your other avenues have been closed to you. You haven’t gotten comfort from the alcohol or your indifference. Your anger hasn’t brought you any sense of relief. Your bitterness, what has it given you?

So if these are coming up blank, would you just trust somebody who’s a little further down the road from you who understands what you’re going through? Would you trust that I’m not making this up, that if I tell you He is trustworthy. I’m telling you from a place where there was nothing to trust, and He showed up. I want that for you, too.

It’s okay that you doubt. It’s okay that you’re angry. He can handle all of it. But don’t cut off, really, your only source of hope and help.

Dannah: Did you ever feel tempted to do that yourself? Were there moments of doubt?

Elizabeth: Yes. When they told me he needed a heart transplant, I was quite angry with God. I thought, At four-and-a-half, after all that He’s asked us to endure, and now this deadend? How could God betray us in this way and ask us to now deal with a heart transplant and all the repercussions and the consequences and the management of that?

I remember not wanting any part of that and feeling incredibly angry. Yes, that was a tough time.

Dannah: Well, you’ve made it through. So how did you make it through that specific thing?

Elizabeth: I cried a lot. And I nursed my anger for a little, and I asked Him to help me. I said, “You have to help me.” And He sent people to talk to me about transplants and showed me pictures of their children who had endured and come out on the other side. And He comforted me in different ways, but used people.

He used people who knew how broken I was. And they helped to patch me up and remind me that I had forgotten about His grace and His mercy. I’d forgotten all the things. And I told them that now I had to put it into practice as well.

Dannah: I think it’s easy to get spiritual amnesia at times of difficulty.

Elizabeth: Yes.

Dannah: But you obviously have remembered, because you’ve written down the lessons you’ve learned in your book, Journey for the Heart: Hope When Life’s Unfair.

Now, there’s probably not in this book a three-step plan to recovering your heart to finding joy, because it just doesn’t work that way. Our paths are as different as each of us are as individuals. But take us into some of the lessons that you learned in your story that you write about in that book. What’s one of them?

Elizabeth: That when you wake up in the morning, and you think, I can’t face today, I had to remind myself there is enough new grace and new mercy for today. I didn’t use it all up.

I remember specifically at Miami Children’s feeling that I couldn’t get off that little parent cot they had provided for us across the hall. I said to Him, “I need mercy. I am just at the end.”

I walked into James’s cubicle, and the little nurse’s aid said, “Hi, Mrs. Mitchell. I’m here to help you today with James. My name is Mercy.” And I just thought, He sent me a postcard to remind me: yeah, it’s all right, and I am here.

Dannah: Wow!

Elizabeth: So, enough grace and mercy, and that you can’t control anything. That all of life is an incredible gift, but you have no control. Control is an illusion, someone has said, and to recognize that my calling today is to just do . . . Elisabeth Elliot would say, “You do the next thing.” Someone said, “You do the next right thing.”

 

Dannah: Right.

Elizabeth: You can’t conquer the world. At the moment, you’re grieving, or you’re confused, or you’re disappointed, but you can get out of bed and brush your teeth and comb your hair and go make breakfast for the children and turn on the computer and do your one assignment. You do the next right thing. You don’t have to have the end. You don’t have to . . . No one can solve your problems, and you least of all. But one step at a time. It’s so trite, but it’s true. Keep doing the next right thing.

Dannah: How do you want to do that? Do you just tell yourself: “I just gotta do the next thing.”

I mean, I remember going through a trauma, and I didn’t eat for three days. Honestly, it wasn’t because I was choosing not to eat. I forgot. I just didn’t remember. My mom came on the third day, and said, “Have you eaten?” And I realized, “Oh, I haven’t. I haven’t eaten.”

My husband was sitting in a trauma ICU, and I wasn’t sure how that story was going to end. It, thankfully, ended well, but for those three days, I didn’t think.

So how do you want to do the next right thing, like, feed yourself or brush your teeth?

Elizabeth: I think when the sun is shining, you develop spiritual habits. You learn about worship and prayer, reading His Word, fasting, journaling, quiet solitude. You learn that when things are going all right. You put them into practice, like an athlete prepares for a race. He doesn’t just show up for a marathon and run it. He’s preparing.

Life is hard, and life is messy. You cannot coast through life. No matter how long you’ve walked with the Lord, it’s not a coasting. So you prepare for what’s going to come by having, I think, spiritual habits in place so that when the shoe drops, and when that calamity befalls you, there’s something there to draw from.

Dannah: Yes.

Elizabeth: That’s one way. You have a tribe, have a group that you have fun with, that you love, that you laugh with, but that have your back so when you can’t pray, when you can’t read a verse, and when you don’t want to hear a verse, and when you can’t deal with life, you text a friend, “Help. Pray for me. I’m going under.” Whatever it is that you need to say.

So develop those friends when the sun is shining so in the storm and the rain and the upheaval, you have them to draw from. You’re not just depending on yourself.

Dannah: Yes. And my experience has been that you develop those relationships, and you find out which are the solid ones, which are rooted in the Rock of Jesus Christ when you become a hard project, when you become difficult, when you become a lot of work.

You probably had friends that sacrificed a lot to walk your other children through schooling and things like that while you were in the hospital with James and to walk you through grief.

Elizabeth: Yes.

Dannah: Do you find that some people get overwhelmed by how much of a burden they are so they just stop asking for help when they really need to be asking for help?

Elizabeth: Yes. That can be the case, absolutely.

Dannah: What would you say to the woman that’s struggling with that feeling?

 

Elizabeth: Let people help you. And as you get well, then you will know how to help other people.

Dannah: Beautiful.

Elizabeth: So receive it now, even though it’s awkward, even though you don’t want to ask, with a mindset that, “As I get better, as I get stronger, as I heal, then it will be my turn to help somebody else.”

So it’s not a one-way street. It’s a beautiful two-way relationship with other people.

Dannah: Pay it forward.

Elizabeth: Yes.

Dannah: Yesterday you shared a Scripture that was very meaningful to you in those early days when James was a baby. Fast forward when he was thirteen, and he went to be with the Lord. Were there any Scriptures that came to life for you in a unique way at that stage?

Elizabeth: He gave me, Psalm 105, like a prescription at a very difficult time. I wrote it, almost like a doctor would write out, “This is a prescription for you.”

Psalm 105:

Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
   make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
   tell of all his wondrous works!
Glory in his holy name;
   let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
Seek the Lord and his strength;
   seek his presence continually!
Remember the wondrous works that he has done. (vv. 1–5)

He gave me this, and then it became a blueprint of how I could do the next right thing I was supposed to do.

And one that percolated to the top I learned somewhere along in some book or some speaker—I wish I knew to give them credit. But it was to worship most especially when you don’t feel like it.

Worship in the dark, to use that black cloud that moved in, that depression or anxiety or fear, rather than recoil from it, to see it as a prompt to pray and worship, almost as if it’s an alarm clock. I’m low, I’m discouraged, I’m fearful, now is a perfect time to worship and not be faking that worship. Worshiping His goodness, His character, His presence.

Not asking for answers or figuring anything out, and not being especially joyful for the circumstances you are in, that’s not a part of it. It’s worshiping the God who is in control.

Dannah: Oh, wow, that’s beautiful.

I love how you talk about that anxiety and that depression when it shows up, letting it be an alarm clock, an invitation to worship.

Psalm 105 says, “Remember the wondrous works that He has done.” How has that fit into the blueprint of walking through this?

Elizabeth: Some days in the hospital when I was very discouraged, I always had my Bible and my journal. So when James was sleeping and nobody was visiting, I’d have the TV off, so I could have a little quiet in that room. I would some days just make a list of every tiny little thing to be thankful for. If James swallowed more today than he did yesterday, or he was able to . . . He had a stroke after the second open-heart surgery, so what little activity could he do today that he couldn’t do yesterday. Who came to visit? I just made a list of things to be thankful for when I didn’t feel particularly thankful.

I found that helpful. And, “Remembering the wondrous things He has done,” I think that’s why I wrote the book. That’s why I blog. That’s why teach and encourage other people. From remembering the wonders that He has done, it’s an act of obedience to remember.

“Oh, You carried me through that? That means I can trust You to carry me or somebody I love through what they’re going through.” It’s important for us to remember. It’s like bringing a long-time memory into short-term memory and causing the focus to be on the God who, “Yes, I can trust Him because of what He did in my past.”

Dannah: Verse 4 says, “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!” How did that work for you?

Elizabeth: It’s going to His Word and just, for me, hanging on to one verse, not thinking I need to read chapters or read the Bible in a year–as wonderful as those plans are. But seeking His presence is just being quiet, finding a regular time, and just reading Scripture, and then praying it back to Him is a way of practicing His presence.

It’s a two-way conversation. You read His Word, and that’s God talking to you. And as you read His Word back to Him or pray His Word back to Him, that’s us talking to Him, using His own words. Praying it not just for ourselves, but praying it for the people that we love and care about.

Dannah: I love that you say some days, “Just one verse,” because when you’re walking through grief, your brain does not work in the same magnificent way that it does at other times in your life. And creating the expectation to experience God’s Word in the same way as you would when your brain is functioning at optimum health isn’t fair. It can just creat a lot of discouragement.

There have been times in my life where I just wrote a verse—one verse—on an index card. Carried it around with me, because if I didn’t carry it with me, I wouldn’t remember what I read that morning.

Elizabeth: Sure.

Dannah: So what a grace to just offer than invitation.

Psalm 105 says, “O offspring of Abraham, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones!” (v. 6).

Do you feel like one of His chosen ones? Do you feel chosen by God, even through all that you’ve walked through?

Elizabeth: I do. He chose us, and He continues to choose us to do His work, to minister—to minister to our own children and grandchildren, to minister to one another as a couple, to minister to people who live close by, and minister to people who are far away, across the world.

The things that we get to do is a privilege to serve Him. To get to know Him is a privilege, to seek His presence continually.

I love the fact that Scripture like Psalm 139 says that, “When I sit down and when I raise up, He’s there.”

We do so many things sitting down. We have meetings. We have quiet time. We sit at the table with our family. In all of those regular, ordinary places, the Lord is there with us, as we’re sitting down, dealing with difficult things, rising up and flourishing.

In that psalm it says that the darkness isn’t dark to Him. What we see as darkness, what we are afraid of, to Him it is light. He sees through it. He sees around it. We see a tiny, little sketch. We see a tiny photograph. He sees the full-length video of where this is going, what He will do with it. And how, “I will transform your heart and mind and use you to minister to other people.”

Dannah: Beautiful.

Nancy: Elizabeth Mitchell will be right back to pray. Her book is Journey for the Heart: Hope when Life’s Unfair.

It’s not available from Amazon, but you can get it directly from Elizabeth. There’s a link to how you can order Journey for the Heart in the transcript of this program at ReviveOurHearts.com.

And while you’re there, have you seen all that ReviveOurHearts.com has to offer for free? It’s the giving friends like you that make it possible for us to offer a growing library of absolutely free resources. These include audio and video content, articles, blog posts, event kits, free downloads, and much more, and it’s available all year long.

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Thank you so much for your partnership and for supporting this ministry as together we call women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

Well, tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts, we hear an encouraging message from Elizabeth Mitchell. She’ll show you that God can use you, even though you don’t have everything all together, and that’s a message all of us need.

When your situation is less than perfect, maybe especially when our situation is less than perfect, God excels in glorifying Himself through our weakness. You won’t want to miss it.

Now, here are Dannah and Elizabeth again to close our time today.

Dannah: I wonder if, for those women who aren’t there yet, and they’re just feeling weak and wondering, How can I pull myself out of this chair to brush my teeth or take a shower? would you pray over her?

Elizabeth: Oh loving heavenly Father, we come to You because of Jesus Christ and all that He has done for all of us. Today, Dannah and I come before You on behalf of women listening, women whose hearts have been broken over some injustice or some great disappointment or some great grief.

And we cry out on their behalf and just ask:

• That the power of Your Holy Spirit would work in their life
• That You would bring them hope
• That You would remind them to have courage, not in where they are, but in who You are 
• That You would bring loving people to them to help them 
• That You would give them the grace to accept the help

Bless these women wherever they are, whatever they’re dealing with, Father.vThank You that we don’t need to tell You their story, that You know all about them and the details and their broken heart, and we commit these women to You, with all the other listeners who need to share all of this and more with those in their lives.

Bless and encourage and continue to use this great ministry to touch the hearts of hundreds and hundreds of those around the world, I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: Amen.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts Ministries, calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.

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