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We do not grieve like those without hope (7 April)

Our Thought for the Week this week comes from Laura Evans, Youth and Community Worker at Cornerstone, Kings Lynn and member of EBA Council.

We do not grieve like those without hope

With a worldwide pandemic going on, all of us have been faced with an unusual amount of death, loss and sadness. Amongst all of the death, it’s easy to forget that Jesus made us victors and not victims and with a life of victory comes hope, expectation and a reliance upon a God who made it all possible.

During Christmas time we lost my beloved Grandma, a lady who during her entire life showed us what it means to truly live with the joy of the Lord, despite whatever circumstances she found herself in. Her life was hard. She was a school child during the war and used her singing gifts to go from air-raid shelter to shelter, lifting everybody’s spirits and ignoring all of the dangers around her. Her headmaster would lift her from bench to bench, singing her heart out until the sirens stopped.

Her family situation was complicated and yet she rose to the challenge and protected her family because she felt that it was her Christian duty. As well as working all of her life, she never missed a day of picking me and my sisters up from school, feeding and educating us and giving us a joy-filled childhood despite what was going on around us. She was a woman to whom duty was completely bound up in her Christian life and, although I can’t prove it, she always seemed to be the happiest, most joy-filled person on earth. She fought and beat a massive stroke and she beat Covid but, finally, God called her home on December 26. She left a big hole in all of our lives.

Our God of course, is a gracious God and through every hurt, somehow, He breathes new life, revealing new things to us and through it all we remember that we do not grieve like those without hope (see 1 Thessalonians 4:13). But what does that actually mean; what does it means to not grieve like those without any hope?

Firstly, we need to daily remind ourselves of what that hope is and then we need to practice living it out … after all, God’s word is living and active!

Secondly, we can choose to remember that God made all things beautiful in His perfect timing, including the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus didn’t rise until the third day and I can’t begin to imagine what the disciples were going through during that three-day period, having witnessed all of those incredible miracles and then watching their Saviour die. It’s no wonder that they fled and hid… it just didn’t make any sense in the world. But that’s where the kingdom of God comes in … what doesn’t make sense on the earth makes a whole lot of sense in the kingdom of God.

Often in our darkest times we might be feeling that we are waiting without hope. We may relate to those same disciples who chose to run and hide but we can choose to have a renewed perspective, a perspective that comes from a discipline of a relationship with God.

We do not grieve like those without hope because we know that Jesus conquered all. We are not uninformed but, in fact, God has prepared us for such times as these. He has already given us the hope that we need to continue in His strength. God has given us a purpose, a purpose that goes beyond the world, beyond human understanding and even beyond the grave.

One day, we will be reunited with God, face to face with Him … that’s our perspective.