It was a sunny, pleasant Saturday on the second of November. I found myself in a graveyard, leaning my wet cheek against the jacketed shoulder of Nathan, my fiancé of two months. Tears were spilling out of my eyes, and my heart ached, though I had never met the woman whose grave we were looking at. It was All Souls Day, a day in the Catholic Church (November 2^nd, the day after All Saints Day) where we remember the dead and pray for their souls. We decided to visit the gravesite of Nathan’s late Oma, who passed away during Nathan’s high school years. As we stood and looked at her burial place, a surprising depth of emotion welled in my heart. Although I felt empathetic to what Nathan might be feeling, I also related some of this emotion to unprocessed grief from the death of my long-distance grandmother just the year before, whose grave I had yet to see.

The gentle tears soon changed into heavy chest sobs that were begging to be released. I took a moment to sit alone in the car and pray. I realized, as I processed, that I have felt this particular ache before. It has shown up when I have sat and listened to the story of a parent who had suddenly lost their child in an accident, or when I’ve looked after cancer patients who were fighting for more time with their children. I’ve also experienced this gut-wrenching pang after helping patients whose babies have tragically died in their wombs.

This ache of witnessing death and grief always produces a refrain in my heart over and over: we were not made for this.

And friends, this is true.

We were not made for death.

Death, separation from God, was a direct result of the fall of Adam and Eve, of humanity choosing sin over relationship.

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” Romans 5:12

Last year I was working through some grief in a particular sorrowful mystery of my life. When I brought my heart to the Lord and asked Him, “if you love me, why would you let this happen when you know how much it means to me?” I felt Him whispering “remember My character”. The purpose of Jesus coming to earth was to enable a path for us to live eternally, with Him. Our God is not a God of death, but of life. That’s who He is. That is His character. He is the God of sunsets, fresh flowers, babies, warm soup, laughter, intimacy, and so much more. Yes, pain, death and brokenness exist in our world, but our God is trustworthy and doesn’t like these things any more than we do. In fact, His mission in coming to earth was to destroy eternal death.

“Christ overcame death by sharing flesh and blood, destroying the power of death, and freeing those who were held in slavery by the fear of death” Hebrews 2:14-15

When I have trouble understanding why a good God could allow such terrible tragedies, I take comfort in knowing this: God is in the business of restoring us to life, and His character is one that fights for life, healing, and resurrection. Sometimes, we might still not understand why God allows terrible things to happen – I certainly don’t. 

In order to help our hearts to stay soft, we also need to allow ourselves to feel brokenhearted and even angry with God, but we must keep turning to Him. After a nursing shift where I have witnessed grief, I always come home and let myself cry and feel the depth of pain in my heart. We are so quick to harden our hearts to keep them from breaking, but that quickly leads to apathy and bitterness. What would happen if you let Him meet you in your pain instead? In one particularly dark season of my own life, I remember angrily sobbing and saying out loud to Jesus “I hate this and I don’t understand you” and through gritted teeth also choosing to say “but I still trust in you”. Though I was in so much pain that night, I felt a small consolation that I was not alone and He was tenderly with me. He is good and He is capable of transforming the worst of human experience into the most beautiful things. God has always brought some form of consolation and peace to my soul when I am honest with Him and seek His face.

Another example of this from my own life: my Mom was incredibly sick throughout my high school years, and I struggled to understand God’s wisdom in allowing such suffering. But God has used that season for marvelous new life: it brought each of my family members closer to Jesus in unique ways, my mom was able to witness Christ to many people in the hospital, and without that season I probably would have never become a nurse. 

Sometimes, we may not be able to see God’s goodness ever coming from tragedy, and that is where we must have faith, be very honest, and ask Him for help. God can only produce new life, even amidst terrible events, and in His wisdom transforms our brokenness to glory. I am repeatedly reminded of God’s character when He gives us the hope of His new Kingdom in Isaiah 65:17-21:

“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.“Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.”