Spiritual Grief

When we are lost in the storms of grief, only God can pierce the darkness. How can a broken, bewildered woman who lost her sister, a brilliant PhD nurse, to suicide, her youngest son to respiratory distress caused by an accidental drug-alcohol interaction, on the night of her brother-in-law's memorial service, her sister-in-law to cancer, four years to the day after her son's death, want to get out of bed and live - out loud and in color? Simple. God revealed Himself to her and breathed life back into every nook and cranny of her very being.

The apostle Peter described faith as "much more precious than gold that perishes". As gold passes through purifying fire, so Peter says a man's faith must be tried in order that it "might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:7). While we address the crises in our lives that try our faith, we rarely praise God the way Job did, and we rarely submit ourselves to the purifying fire as Peter suggests.