The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

First in a Three-Part Series

My son Elliott took his own life at the age of (almost) 15. He did so on my 35^th birthday. Forty years ago. He showed no signs of depression or mental illness. There were no drugs or alcohol in his system. He had a steady girlfriend and was a straight-A student on the varsity wrestling team. No one saw it coming.

I was plunged into deep grief, shame, guilt, self-blame, panic attacks, existential angst, and a clinical depression that required therapy and medication to break.

Many things cause grief – injustice, cruelty, rejection, loss of mobility. Here, I focus on what some regard as the hardest of griefs – the loss of a child. Hopefully, some of what is shared applies in a broader context as well. 

In occidental culture, we are encouraged to disown grief, to get over it, move on with life. That is ludicrous to those of us who have buried a child. To “get over it” implies that their life did not touch us at the deepest level. “Moving on” requires a negation of our love. Grief is caused by love. If we never love, we never grieve.

Grief is the normal, appropriate response to the loss of a loved one. Grief is the heart-wound left in the living by death of one deeply loved. The deeper you love someone, the deeper you will grieve their loss. Grief is not a pathology. It is not something to be cured. Therapy and spiritual direction can help us navigate grief, but grief must be embraced. If it is ignored or denied, it will adversely affect not only the bereaved, but the extended family and future generations.

We ignore or minimize grief in a variety of ways. Individually, we might try to medicate it away or stay busy and distracted. Collectively, we western Christians minimize grief by thinking wrongly about God and God’s creation.

Augustine introduced an image of God as immutable, unchanging, aloof, dwelling in eternal perfect tranquility, undisturbed. That’s Platonic, not Judeo-Christian. God isn’t bothered by Alligator Alcatraz or Auschwitz? The incarnation of Christ negates any such thought. God is not aloof. God cares. God crossed into our realm and took our pain as his own. An aloof God is not a God of love. Jesus is Emmanuel – God with us.

Calvin introduced an image of God as primarily interested in perfecting the elect, and so creating, sending, or allowing sorrow for the purpose of making us holy. This God kills babies to make their moms holy? That God is a monster. Of course, God can and does use everything that happens to us for our good, but God does not cause evil, chaos, death. The satan is the one that goes about to steal and kill, not YHWH.

Among evangelicals, there is a sense that all that matters is getting a person “saved” so they can go to heaven when they die. Now they’re dead, so now they’re in heaven where it’s all perfect, so those of us left behind should celebrate and not grieve. Christians told me I lacked faith because I was crying at my son’s funeral.

It’s become popular to substitute a “celebration of life” for a funeral. That makes sense for someone like my mother, who lived a full life and died at the age of 98. Even in Elliott’s case, I can celebrate who he was – adventurous, brilliant, creative. But please don’t tell me I shouldn’t mourn. To refuse to mourn would be to deny my love. I deeply loved Elliott. Therefore, I deeply grieve his death. I’m not opposed to “celebrations of life,” unless they somehow divert people from grief. Jesus wept at the graveside of his friend Lazarus. I needed to wail, sob convulsively, moan on multiple occasions over many years. A traditional Christian funeral speaks to me more deeply than a “celebration of life.”

One reason we western Christians sometimes disown grief lies in the fact that we have come to dishonor the physical. Nineteenth century dispensationalism has taught us that the physical world is temporary, unimportant, all destined to burn up. Our goal is “get saved,” then be evacuated at a “rapture.” This is not the place to discuss at length that that is entirely unbiblical, but it is. 

God loves God’s creation, including us. It’s not all going to burn. The cosmos will be renewed, all that is evil will be winnowed out of it eventually, but the physical material world is essentially good. God wants us to treasure it, carefully steward nature, be environmentally sensitive. God also wants us to honor our bodies. They are temples of the Holy Spirit. I believe Elliott will be resurrected to eternal life and clothed in a new physical immortal body, but I knew and loved him in his earthly body, so I committed it to the grave in reverence. 

Rather than disowning grief, we need to own it, embrace it, integrate it into our life-stories. You cannot know me for very long without discovering that I am a bereaved father whose much loved son died in 1986. I don’t introduce myself that way. I only bring it up when it feels appropriate to do so, but it is a part of who I am. I loved him. I lament his loss.

The intense emotions of grief fade over time. I no longer sob convulsively or rant into the darkness, but I carry a permanent heart-wound.

After his resurrection, Jesus displayed the wounds of crucifixion to his followers. Jesus carried those wounds into the Triune Divine Heart at his ascension. He is a man acquainted with grief. He bore our sorrows. God cares.

So, if God is not distant, aloof, unmoved by our sorrows, and if God does not send tragedy to perfect us, and if God deeply cares about the physical world, where is God in the death of a child? 

This is the stuff of theodicy. Augustine says God is aloof. Calvin says God is perfecting us by delivering us from the sin of loving too much. Modern evangelicals say the physical doesn’t matter, Elliott’s in heaven. (Actually, a few told me he was in hell because he took his own life.) Society wants me to celebrate life and ignore sorrow. Well-meaning people suggest I take medicine to “get over it.” Others say God isn’t omnipotent, that God cannot prevent sorrows and death. 

None of those theodicies work for me. If they do for you, great – no judgement. I sit in the liminal place of not knowing. I’m okay here because I am not alone. I have a loving spouse, great adult children, and some friends that sit with me on the mourners’ bench. We sit without answers, but we sit together in love.

We do not sit alone. There is One who is with us. I was standing at Elliott’s grave a few years after his death and was overcome with deep sorrow. I was retching with sorrow, sobbing from a level I didn’t know I had. I saw nothing. Heard nothing. But I was mysteriously aware that Jesus was standing next to me, arm around my shoulder, sobbing intensely with me. He no longer sobs, but he still sits with me.

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I’m deeply indebted to my friend Nicholas Wolterstorff (Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology Emeritus at Yale University) for this series on grief. His books, Lament for a Son (ISBN 080280294X) and Living with Grief (ISBN-13: ‎979-8385201006) have touched my heart like no others.