For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine
in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory
displayed in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay
to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed.
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 

(2 Corinthians 4:6-10)

My sweet grandpa died on Sunday morning.

Since then, I’ve been aimlessly wandering around the house with a hammer in hand and nails in my mouth, searching for the perfect place to hang art—only to take it down a few hours later. For breakfast one morning I sat down to oatmeal with blueberries because my grandpa loved berry things, only to find that I’d brought a butter knife to eat it with.

I’ve opened cabinets and stared at the mixed nuts and cereal boxes for a few moments before closing the doors, having forgotten why I ever opened them. I bought a gigantic jar of peanut butter pretzels along with some lemons. The lemons have been multiplying in the fridge. We now have a surplus of lemons.

When waves of sorrow unexpectedly crash over me, I’ve tried push grief under the surface, attempting to drown it in productivity. But it keeps popping up, asking that I give it some attention. So I’m trying to pay attention—to slow down enough to let grief catch up with my body, heart, and spirit. What I’ve found in that process is this:

Grief is inconvenient.

It doesn’t fit in with our busy lives or our prioritizing productivity. But it deserves our attention, because it is the soul’s way of getting us to slow down to honor the love we shared for whoever or whatever has been lost. One of my favorite descriptions of grief comes from a Marvel tv show in which a human-esque robot (yes, I see the ridiculousness) wipe’s a grieving woman’s tears and tells her, “What is grief, but love persevering?”

If grief is an expression of love, why do we try so hard to fight it or ignore it—to pretend it doesn’t exist?

Maybe because it reminds us of our own impermanence on this earth. Or maybe we’re afraid that the sorrow will be too much for us to carry—that we’ll collapse under the weight of pain and loss.

But the Bible shows us a different way to carry grief. In his second letter to the Corinthian church, Paul writes about the complex mix of persecution and perseverance that he and other Christians are experiencing:

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed.
(2 Cor. 4:8-9)

In the next verse, Paul shares with the Corinthians why he and his community are able to keep pressing on in the face of persecution. He writes,

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus…
(Why?)
…so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

(2 Cor. 4:10)

It would seem Paul is saying that we cannot hold life without also holding death. For those who follow Jesus, the reverse is also true: we cannot hold death without holding life, because there is no Cross without the Resurrection. This week the verse “We do not grieve like those who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13) has been repeating in my mind, making me wonder, what does it look like to grieve with hope? And I think this is the answer:

We grieve with hope when we carry both the death and resurrection of Jesus in our bodies as evidence that life and death are two sides of the same beautiful paradox.

One day, death will be swallowed up forever. But for now, we grieve with hope. We allow our grief to signify the strength of our love instead of believing the lie that grief makes us weak. May we be people who honor our own tears and the tears of others, weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice.

May we receive Paul’s blessing as a balm to our sorrow and as a reminder of the joy to come:

Therefore we do not lose heart.
Though outwardly we are wasting away,
yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us
an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen,
since what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal.

-1 Corinthians 4:16-18

AMEN.