And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,
who[a] have been called according to his purpose
How God Can Help You Grow Through Grief? Grief is a natural, healthy, and expected reaction to a significant loss. Mourning is a necessary step toward emotional healing and wholeness.
“Why does God allow suffering?” many people wonder. Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic and inspiring speaker, describes how God uses your losses to pull you closer to himself.
1. God first uses pain to draw your attention
The first sign God is trying to get your attention is by bringing up the topic of pain and suffering. Pain is a very universal human experience and one of the results of sin. It’s important to check what other people tell you about the meaning of your unhappiness against the word of God. Then, you can know if their feedback is a sign from God or just another attempt to try and fix your problem by your own methods.
Grief is a necessary part of the process to become more like Christ. The death of a loved one, losing a job or being betrayed by a friend can all be sources of grief and heartache. Even good things like childbirth or marriage can cause pain. The best thing to do during hard times is to draw close to God.
As the greatest parent we can imagine, God cares about our suffering. He may allow us to suffer the consequences of our own choices, just like a parent would with a rebellious child. But He can also use the painful experiences of others to show His love. One of the most powerful examples of this is Jesus’s willingness to suffer and die for us. He did this because He loves us so much and wants to spend eternity with us.
2. God brings good out of bad
The Bible is full of stories of people who suffered loss and found God in the midst of their grief. Job clung to God despite catastrophic losses, David prayed while in prison, and Jesus publicly grieved the death of Lazarus. God is in the business of taking bad things that look like they’re going to destroy us and making them good.
He uses suffering to bring you closer to Himself. It’s as if the pain draws you under it and sucks you up into the comfort of His presence, a place where He is with you in your loss, even when it seems a million miles away.
Sometimes we think of God as above the suffering that His children experience, but that’s not true. A loving parent will sacrifice themselves for their children, and God is no different. He gave His own Son to die a horrible, undeserved death so that we could be saved. Then, He redeemed the deadness of that moment and turned it into the most glorious event in history. He will do the same with any bad time you encounter if you let Him. He loves you too much to let anything destroy you. He’s got a better plan. -Romans 8:28.
3. God prepares you for eternity
There is a point when grief and sadness no longer overshadow everything else in your life. This doesn’t mean that you forget about the loss or stop talking about it, but that your primary focus shifts back to normal. Things like school, work and even socializing come back into play.
This is when you can start to find God’s purpose in the pain. Maybe He uses your pain to bring you closer to other people who have been through the same thing and can offer empathy in the moment and hope for the future. He also might use your pain to show you people who need His comfort, just like he used Joni Eareckson Tada’s paralyzing diving accident to help her and thousands of others.
One thing to remember is that Romans 8:28 is a promise “to those who love God.” It’s easy for this verse to get ripped out of context and then misapplied. It is important to realize that this verse is a promise of comfort for those who love and trust in God. So, if you do love and trust God, He will make your sufferings work together for good. This does not necessarily mean that your painful experiences will be pleasant, but they will work together to help you grow and prepare for eternity.
