For weeks, our two kids practiced reciting verses for the National Bible Bee’s Proclaim Day. When they finally took the stage, their hands trembling and the high ceiling dwarfing them, the sound of Scripture on their voices moved us to applause and thanksgiving. As the clapping died down, however, our 11-year-old son, Jack, surprised us by climbing onto the stage a second time.

“I want to share a verse that I find very comforting,” he said. “We read this a lot when we had a friend who was passing away.” He then recited 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 from memory:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

My husband and I stared at one another in awe. We hadn’t practiced these verses with Jack. Rather, we’d read them during family worship as a dear friend of ours was dying in hospice, and by God’s kindness, Jack had harbored them in his heart. God had worked through a moment of heartache in our family to strengthen our son’s faith, and in doing so, he reminded all of us of his grace amid loss.

Guiding Children Through the Valley

When a loved one dies and grief swallows us up, we may struggle to discern how to guide our children. Their hearts are so tender, we think. Won’t the harsh realities of death bruise them? We wonder if we should suppress our own sorrow to avoid upsetting them. How much should we say? How much should we conceal?

As a retired trauma surgeon, I have sat beside dying friends and loved ones with unusual frequency. Walking through those experiences while raising children has highlighted the need for discernment and sensitivity in such delicate matters. Kids’ hearts are vulnerable to breaking, and we need to handle them gently. We must follow our Lord’s leading not to break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick (Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20).

And yet, while our natural instinct as parents is to shelter our kids from pain, shepherding rarely means sequestering. Our kids will experience death at some point in their lives. Their time with us in the home provides a precious opportunity to give them a Christian framework for death and to model a response that emphasizes our hope in Christ. God can work through death and grief to draw his beloved closer to himself (Psalm 34:18; Romans 8:28) — even the littlest souls entrusted to our care.

How do we navigate the shadowy valley with our kids? How do we raise their eyes to the things that are unseen and eternal? Time and again, I’ve seen God’s grace and mercy at work in my kids’ lives during times of loss. Drawing from those experiences, I humbly offer the following five suggestions to help guide you as you shepherd children through loss.

1. Create space for discussion.

Jack was four when our friend David entered hospice, and before bed one night, I could tell his thoughts troubled him. When I inquired, he asked how David had developed emphysema and why death happens. Then he requested we see David every day until his passing — which we did.

Meanwhile, after the funeral of our friend Carolyn, our nine-year-old daughter, Christie, seemed uncharacteristically quiet. With some gentle prodding, she admitted that standing in the cemetery during the interment scared her. We had a long discussion afterward about how popular culture falsely portrays graveyards as places of horror, and we emphasized the truth: Carolyn was with Jesus, and only her body remained on the earth.

“The problem of sin has a solution. For now we groan, but Christ has swallowed up death in victory.”

As these anecdotes reveal, children wrestle with big questions and bigger feelings. After a loved one’s death, they may not voice troubling thoughts right away, but their silence doesn’t mean they aren’t wrestling. To best love your children during moments of loss, create space for them to talk with you and to share their fears, sorrows, and concerns. Check in with them before bed. Pause during family worship. Above all, invite them to talk with you and to ask questions. Give them permission to explore their complex thoughts and feelings with you. Assure them no questions are shameful and that their concerns won’t worsen your grief. Create opportunities for open dialogue in a loving context.

2. Normalize grief as a time to weep.

As parents, we rush to comfort our children the moment waterworks start. Given such a tendency, when kids see us crying, they may feel the same impulse and experience distress when our tears don’t stop.

Rather than suppress your tears or abandon your kids to process their emotions alone, walk them through the process of grief. Help them understand that sorrow and crying are normal God-given responses to the death of a loved one. To help cement your words into their minds, tie them to God’s words. Discuss how there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Review how Job tore his robes and fell to the ground in mourning when his children died (Job 1:20), how David wept over Absalom (2 Samuel 19:4), and how even Jesus wept when Lazarus died (John 11:35).

Validate your children’s feelings as they grieve. Especially when they’re young, children may not feel sorrow at the loss of a loved one and worry their response is somehow wrong when everyone else is sad. Come alongside your kids and help them understand that grief is complex. It ebbs and flows, affects everyone differently, and stirs up emotions that may vary dramatically. Normalize confusion, sorrow, and tangled feelings — all of which we see in the psalms of lament (such as Psalms 22, 77, 130) as believers struggle with their grief.

3. Frame death as a consequence of the fall.

No matter the age of the person pondering them, questions about death cut to the heart of our fallenness. Illness afflicts us because sin stains all of God’s creation (Genesis 3:17–19). Death is the wages of our sin and comes to all (Romans 5:12; 6:23). It is grim, dark, and painful because it reflects a corruption of God’s original design (Genesis 2:9).

Speaking openly about death as a necessary consequence of the fall helps kids to cope when it strikes their own circles. They learn that death is a part of life in this fallen world, something to accept rather than to fear. Most importantly, when we explain death to our kids in the context of the fall, we can point them to Christ. The problem of sin has a solution. For now we groan, but Christ has swallowed up death in victory (1 Corinthians 15:55–57).

4. Model trust in God.

When possible, reflect with your kids on God’s sovereignty and provision in the face of death. Model trust in him even when understanding fails. Lean into the truth that his ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9).

Psalm 23 is an excellent passage to read together. Although we all will walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need not fear because God will be with us (Psalm 23:4). Elsewhere, he has promised never to leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8). Our times are in his hands (Psalm 31:15). His word assures us that nothing — not even death! — can separate us from his love for us in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38–39).

5. Point to our hope in Christ.

For the believer, Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection have transformed death from the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26) to the path to our heavenly home. “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus told Martha. “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26). Although we are all wasting away, our sufferings and death are but a light momentary affliction preparing us for our eternal dwelling with God (2 Corinthians 4:16–18; Revelation 21:3).

Point your kids to this truth early and often. As you wipe the tears from their cheeks, remind them that although it’s right to cry after loss, we also cleave to joy. We cling to the truth that a loved one with faith in Christ has quit the travails of this sinful world and now rejoices before God’s throne, where death, pain, and crying are no more (Revelation 21:3).

Some children worry that loved ones who didn’t attend church or profess faith in Jesus will not be in heaven. In such moments, point them to God’s faithfulness, mercy, and sovereignty. Teach them about the thief on the cross, to whom God granted salvation even in his dying moments (Luke 23:43). Remind them that while we may be uncertain about a loved one’s faith, God is faithful, just, and forgiving (1 John 1:9), and we can trust his good and perfect will wholeheartedly, no matter what questions trouble us.

After our Bible Bee experience, Jack elaborated on his fondness for 2 Corinthians 4:16–18. “It helps me to remember we have hope because of Jesus,” he said. His words capture the answer for all of us — from age 0 to 99 — when death strikes: faith in Christ. Solace, peace, and rest reside in him (Matthew 11:28). Even as we weep in the face of death, by Christ’s wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

For five years, I cared for my friend Violet as her memories faded away. Dementia took hold, and the feisty Finnish woman who took pride in her nursing career, her spotless lawn, and her adoring German shepherd eventually forgot the people and home she loved. In her final months, she no longer recognized Bible verses that had buoyed her through so many storms.

But she still had “Amazing Grace.”

During Violet’s last year, I visited her every Tuesday with my Bible in hand. She neither recognized me nor recalled any words I read to her. But whenever I sang “Amazing Grace,” she joined in, warbling just as she had for so many years in the choir. In a season when the fog of dementia had otherwise clouded her vision of God’s grace, she reclaimed his promises through song: “I once was lost but now am found; was blind but now I see.”

Chorus of Commands

Throughout the Bible, praise, adoration, and thanksgiving move God’s people to sing. After God guides the Israelites safely across the Red Sea, Moses leads them in song (Exodus 15:1). When God protects David from Saul, David praises him with singing (2 Samuel 22:49–50).

This pattern repeats throughout the whole biblical story. When God blesses Hannah with a son, she sings in thanksgiving (1 Samuel 2:1–10). After Gabriel visits Mary to foretell Jesus’s birth, she rejoices with the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55). Jesus himself sings a hymn (likely from Psalm 118) at the Last Supper (Matthew 26:30), and John foresees all the nations singing praises to the risen Lord in the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 5:9–12).

Paul encourages the church to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16). James writes, “Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise” (James 5:13). The Lord himself calls us to sing as we praise him. Consider Psalm 96:1–3:

Oh sing to the Lord a new song;     sing to the Lord, all the earth!Sing to the Lord, bless his name;     tell of his salvation from day to day.Declare his glory among the nations,     his marvelous works among all the peoples!

Psalm 147 likewise begins, “Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting” (Psalm 147:1). And Psalm 100 joins the theme: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!” (Psalm 100:1–2).

From beginning to end, singing and worship go hand in hand.

Reason to Sing

Why would God so fervently command us to unite our words with melody when we worship him? On the one hand, as God creates us in his image, we’re to rejoice in song just as he does. In Zephaniah 3:17, we read,

The Lord your God is in your midst,     A mighty one who will save;He will rejoice over you with gladness;     He will quiet you by his love;He will exult over you with loud singing.

Furthermore, when we lift our voices in song to the Lord, we direct our emotions heavenward, stirring up thankfulness in our hearts as befits the Almighty (Colossians 3:16). As Jonathan Edwards writes, “The duty of singing praises to God, seems to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections” (Religious Affections, 115).

“When we read a verse, it can flit away; when we sing it, we harbor God’s word in our heart.”

And yet, there’s another reason to worship with singing — a reason beautifully evident during my visits with Violet. In Deuteronomy 31:19–21, God commands Moses to teach the people a song recounting his deeds so that they and their offspring might remember. “When many evils and troubles have come upon them,” God says, “this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring)” (Deuteronomy 31:21).

When we sing God’s praises, we glorify him, obey him, and direct our hearts toward him. But also, remarkably, we remember words our inconstant, sin-stricken brains would otherwise so quickly forget.

Musical Memory

The history of God’s people is a story of forgetfulness and remembrance. In the wilderness, the Israelites forgot the wondrous deeds God had accomplished in Egypt and worshiped the work of their own hands (Exodus 32:1–10). In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses pleaded with the people to remember what God had done for them (Deuteronomy 4:9; 8:2, 11–20). Joshua built a memorial of twelve stones from the Jordan River so the following generations might know how God provided (Joshua 4:1–7). Finally, in the upper room, Jesus commanded his disciples to take the wine and the bread in remembrance of him, as we also must do (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:23–29).

To follow Christ is to remember and proclaim what he has done (Acts 4:20). And the gift of song, in addition to stirring our hearts, aids our minds in remembering. When we read a verse, it can flit away; when we sing it, we harbor God’s word in our heart (Psalm 119:11).

The link between song and remembrance arises from how God designed our brains. While the act of forgetting may seem simple, we actually have several types of memory, all organized within separate areas of the nervous system. Declarative memory involves recall of events, concepts, words, meanings, and facts, and it originates in the temporal lobes and hippocampus. Studies show, however, that music involves complicated networks in the brain beyond this system.

Singing triggers our procedural memory — a complex network involving the cerebellum, motor cortex, and deeper brain structures. Procedural memory allows us to perform actions without explicitly focusing on them. Consider how rarely you think about how to ride a bike or drive a car after your first awkward days of learning. Such procedural memories are so robustly imprinted in our brains, that we can take up an action like playing the piano or knitting even if we’ve not done so in ages.

Musical processing also connects to emotional memory, centered in a region of the brain called the amygdala. The emotional memory system helps us to recall events with strong feelings attached to them. The link between music and emotional memory explains why certain songs transport us to a specific moment in time and evoke feelings we may not have recalled for years.

Thanks to the connection between music and these two memory systems, we can hardly erase catchy jingles from our heads, no matter how much they annoy us. Hearing a familiar song on the radio can instantly carry us to that first handhold with a spouse or to our birthday party in kindergarten. Most stunning of all, the link between these systems reveals why the command to “Sing to the Lord!” not only glorifies God but also blesses us abundantly. When we sing, we remember.

Melody When Memory Fails

The human brain’s stunning ability to recall music is a gift of mercy in Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s preferentially affects the temporal lobes and hippocampus, the regions of the brain responsible for declarative memory. As a result, memory for language, names, and events erodes away. Memory for recent events fades first, as these are less rigorously stored. Over time, however, even remote events can slip away.

“God has designed the very architecture of our brains to hide his word even when our memories fail.”

Memory for music, however, often remains intact in Alzheimer’s because it involves the procedural and emotional memory systems. The response to music is preserved even in advanced dementia, when patients can no longer reason, plan, or even speak. “I remember the first time I saw someone with Alzheimer’s remembering the Lord through music,” writes clinical psychologist Benjamin Mast in his book Second Forgetting: Remembering the Power of the Gospel During Alzheimer’s Disease. During his visit to a memory-care center, where “the full range of dementia was represented,” he writes,

When it came time for music, and especially the old hymns, things visibly changed. One woman who only wanted to leave finally sat down for a while to listen. A man who was always angry and agitated now had a contented look and tapped his foot to the music. Another man who was quite confused closed his tear-filled eyes and slowly raised his hands while quietly mouthing each word. God uses music to reach the seemingly unreachable. And he gives us this gift as a gracious resource to help us in drawing people back to him, to reengage their faith. (139)

By God’s grace, believers who can no longer remember the names of loved ones can still readily sing God’s praises. God has designed the very architecture of our brains to hide his word even when our memories fail. And he commands us to sing so that we might recall his life-giving word even when we’re prone to forget.

Sing to the Lord, my brothers and sisters. Make a joyful noise. And as you sing, even as other memories fade, remember his amazing grace — the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love for you in Christ.

“So, you’re a trauma surgeon! Tell me, what was your best case?”

Suddenly, the studio lights glared uncomfortably bright. Undoubtedly, the interviewer wanted me to offer him a flashy, adrenaline-fueled scene worthy of TV docudramas, a story stuffed to the brim with clickbait. But for those of us who toil in the wages of sin over the long years, rarely do these heart-pumping rescues linger at the forefront of our minds.

Rather, my first thoughts were the horrors: The young man who shouted, “Help me!” before he fell unconscious and died in the CT scanner. The woman, broken with grief, who crawled into her dying daughter’s ICU bed to hold her one last time. The paraplegic father whose anguish over the sudden death of his son so wrecked him that he howled and pitched forward out of his wheelchair onto the floor.

When I offered the interviewer the truth, his enthusiasm fizzled before my eyes, and he changed the subject. I forced a smile, swallowed down the tightness in my throat, and struggled against the tide of grief that’s become as familiar and worn as a tattered coat. It’s a mantle common to many who walk beside the hurting — the heaviness that presses upon the heart when we’ve witnessed others’ suffering over and over and over.

Burden of Caregiving

In whatever avenue they serve — in chaplaincy, military service, health care, counseling, or simply loving friendship — Christian caregivers often share a similar heart, viewing mercy as fundamental to following Jesus. What more poignant way to fulfill the call to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God than to come alongside others during their darkest hours (Micah 6:8)? How better to love a neighbor as ourselves than to dedicate the work of our hands to uplifting the downtrodden and afflicted (Matthew 22:39)?

Yet when we “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), our tears can linger long after our work at the bedside or on the battlefield has finished. When we bear another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) in the hospital, overseas, or in a dying loved one’s home, our shoulders can ache long after our service has ended. Suffering leaves a mark, and in ministry that uniquely seeks to love the hurting, we bear those marks repeatedly.

In fact, when we have a front-row seat to the wages of sin, we can start to question God’s goodness and sovereignty. Is he really in control when so many suffer? Does he really love us? How do we carry on when the suffering we witness steals all hope and breath? How do we lavish others with the healing word of Christ when our own wounds still sting?

Four Truths to Guard Your Heart

When ministering to the hurting, harboring God’s word in your heart is essential. The following four reminders from Scripture can equip caregivers to face repeated suffering with grace and perseverance so they might continue to show the love of Christ when their own hearts ache with weariness.

1. You are not alone.

Just as my interviewer couldn’t comprehend the tragedies I’d seen, so also few fully understand the suffering caregivers witness in their day-to-day ministry. In Moral Warriors, Moral Wounds, retired Navy chaplain Wollom Jensen reflects upon this phenomenon: “I know what it is to live with fear; to be appalled by the loss of human life; to be shamed by the experience of participating in war; and the feeling of having lost one’s youth in ways that those who have not been to war will never be able to understand” (2).

And yet, as isolated as we may feel in our experiences of suffering, the truth is that in Christ we are never alone. Jesus was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” He bore our afflictions and carried our sufferings (Isaiah 53:3–4). As the author of Hebrews writes, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

“Revel in the joy, the hope, the assurance we have in Christ that, when he returns, death shall be no more.”

God’s one and only Son — the Word who was with the Father when he stirred the heavens into existence — took on flesh, dwelt among us, and endured the same agonies and wounds that so trouble us. Most magnificent of all, Christ bore such suffering for us (Isaiah 53:4–5). He bore our burdens, knows our tears, and has journeyed through the shadowy valley. Astonishingly, he walks with us even now. “Behold,” he has promised, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

2. God works through suffering.

The Bible overflows with examples of God working through our trials to bring about what is beautiful, good, and right (Romans 8:28). Remember Joseph, who endured assault, enslavement, and exile at the hands of his treacherous brothers, but who saw God at work in it all. “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Genesis 50:20).

Consider John 11, when Jesus delayed in going to the bedside of his dying friend Lazarus. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” Martha lamented (John 11:21). And yet, his delay served a stunning purpose: to draw dozens of the lost to himself (John 11:42, 45).

Most of all, consider the cross. God worked through his Son’s agony and death to accomplish the greatest feat in all of history — the redemption of fallen sinners and the restoration of God’s people to himself as his adopted children (John 3:16; 1 John 3:1).

If God could work good through sorrows as deep as these, then surely he can do the same in our own sorrows — however piercing, however confusing, however long-lasting.

3. God invites you into his rest.

When working in the fields of heartbreak, the grave responsibility of caregiving can overwhelm us. In such moments, opening our hands to Jesus brings relief. Remember, we are not saviors. We are laborers in the harvest, but salvation comes through Christ alone, and any good we effect is through his will, not our own (Ephesians 2:10).

God is the Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, worthy of all praise; we, on the other hand, are fallen, finite, and weak. We are not enough. When we acknowledge our frailty and confess our failings before God, his grace increases all the more: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Turn over your grief to the Lord. Come to him earnestly in heartfelt prayer. “[Cast] all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Remember Jesus’s invitation: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

4. Death is swallowed up in victory.

A dear friend and sister in Christ, for whom I served as caregiver for five years, recently fell asleep in Jesus. As I held her hand, felt her pulse become thready, and watched her breathing slow as her earthly life waned, a thought recurred in my mind: this is precisely why Jesus came. To liberate us from these shackles. To save us, in stunning grace, from the wages of our sins (Romans 6:23).

The gospel shatters death’s hold on us. Jesus has swallowed up death in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54). He endured the cross so we might endure our own death. He rose from the tomb so that we, too, will rise. Death shall be no more. In this fallen, broken world, trials will afflict us, but Christ has overcome (John 16:33).

When Death Is Done

“So we do not lose heart,” Paul writes, reflecting upon the gospel.

Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16–18)

My brothers and sisters, when you sit beside the dying and come alongside the grieving, when you seek to share the gospel in dark places, allow the light of Christ to embolden and guide you. The things that are seen and transient wither before the blinding Light of the world. Let that light illuminate your mind. Let his word guide your path. Revel in the joy, the hope, the assurance we have in Christ that, when he returns, “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore,” for the former things will have passed away (Revelation 21:4).

Every Tuesday, Violet smiles when I visit and hold her hand, but she doesn’t remember that I’m the friend who has helped to care for her for the past five years. The framed needlepoint pictures with which she lovingly decorated her home were forgotten long ago, and she now sits at the craft table in a daze, as if she’s never held scissors before.

On a good day, she tries to recite the Lord’s Prayer along with me, but increasingly she shows no recognition of the words that once buoyed her through the storms of life. The fog of dementia crowded out her recollection of such ordinary means of grace long ago, and now her world has narrowed to the bright walls of her memory-care community.

Walking alongside Violet feels like watching death in slow motion. As the quirks and values and personality traits I’ve come to love about her fade away one by one, it’s as if I’m watching Violet herself dwindle and vanish.

Unique Grief

The sorrow I’ve experienced in my journey with Violet is only a shadow of the anguish that caregivers shoulder when a beloved family member has dementia. Families of dementia sufferers struggle with high rates of anticipatory grief — mourning in expectation of loss — while a loved one is still alive. A devastating diagnosis brings tides of disbelief and heartache even before death takes hold. We grieve as we envision life without someone dear to us; we grieve as illness erodes our loved one’s vitality and, in the case of dementia, his memories and personality.

It is a strange and disorienting experience to mourn for someone who is still alive. In the most merciful cases, a dismaying diagnosis prompts us to prioritize heartfelt conversations and last lingering embraces while we can. Dementia, however, often robs loved ones even of this meager solace. Sufferers often lack the language, insight, and memory to have the meaningful conversations for which we pine. We may say the words pressing on our hearts, only for our loved one to forget an hour later, or even worse, to lash out with agitation and uncharacteristic cruelty. Closure in dementia grief is an elusive and seldom-achieved prize.

Our sorrow deepens as the insidious and progressive nature of dementia alters our loved ones before our eyes. Troubles with finding words and the loss of short-term memory pave the way for withdrawal from activities and friends. The abilities to cook and drive disappear. Eventually, even getting dressed independently becomes a feature of the past. As the familiar fades away, new, unsettling behaviors emerge, with agitation, anxiety, and hallucinations punctuating our loved one’s days. In the wake of such changes, families experience the loss of the person they knew, and given the long and slow course of dementia, this period of grieving persists for years. Rather than offer closure, anticipatory grief in dementia hobbles on and on, accumulates new wounds, and often worsens over time.

As we ride the swells of confusion and sorrow, our concerns turn toward the spiritual. What can we say about a loved one’s soul when he loses all memory of attending church, of reciting prayers, and even of Christ himself? Does God’s grace fade away with memories, shriveling as our neurons thin? Are our loved ones still saved when they can no longer affirm with their words that Christ is risen?

Kept as Memories Fade

Violet no longer seems to remember her beloved dogs, or how she would manicure the woods in her backyard, clearing sticks from the carpet of pine needles with a precision hinting of fairy work. And yet, she smiles, returns hugs, and feels emotions sufficiently deep to laugh and cry. Although her memories have faded away, God’s fingerprint remains indelibly upon her.

And so it does upon all of God’s people, whether we stride through life clear-eyed or wander in a mist, because our salvation springs not from our memory, but from God’s grace toward us in Christ. As Benjamin Mast, professor of psychology at the University of Louisville, so poignantly states in his insightful book Second Forgetting,

Conditions like Alzheimer’s disease have such a hold on a person that it can seem like a form of bondage — that the person is a slave to the disease. Yet while there are great changes in their memory, personality, and behavior, there is still an underlying reality and an enduring aspect of their identity that cannot be taken away. . . . These individuals remain children of God, created in his image, and their identity and their life is still rooted securely in Christ. (66)

Such an assurance can be comforting when we no longer hear the name of Christ upon a loved one’s lips. When praises fall silent and long-recited prayers fade from memory, we may worry that our loved one’s prior declarations of faith were false professions (Matthew 7:21–23; Romans 11:29). How can we still count loved ones among the saved, we wonder, when they no longer call upon the name of the Lord (Acts 2:21)?

“Our loved ones’ salvation depends not on their memory, but on his. And his memory is perfect.”

We can remind ourselves that a dementia sufferer’s forgetfulness reflects the effects of disease rather than a willful rejection of salvation through Christ. For those with dementia, the brokenness of creation affects the mind with particular devastation. Yet while such a sufferer’s spoken trust in the Lord may falter, God has promised to uphold us into our old age, even as our memories fade (Isaiah 46:4).

Undiminished Hope

God chose his elect before the foundation of the world to be his own children (John 1:12; Ephesians 1:4), “a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). Whether or not the ravages of dementia change a loved one’s memory or behavior, in Christ he remains a new creation (Romans 6:6; 2 Corinthians 5:17). Consider the assurance and the solace Peter offers:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3–5)

God has caused us to be born again. Faith is a gift from God himself, “not a result of works” (Ephesians 2:8–9), and once lavished upon us, our inheritance of eternal life remains imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. That same inheritance awaits our loved ones with dementia, even when they can no longer remember Christ’s name. Even when they cannot speak, the Spirit continues to search and know their hearts and prays on their behalf (Romans 8:26–27). Our loved ones’ salvation depends not on their memory, but on his. And his memory is perfect.

Unfading Memory

God never forgets his beloved. Unlike our own sin-weary minds, prone to deterioration and breakage, nothing escapes his notice (Psalm 33:13–15). He knows our thoughts even before we voice them: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar” (Psalm 139:1–2).

Even more astonishing, God’s perfect memory is caught up in his faithfulness. Over and over throughout the Old Testament, God remembers his people and acts in mercy even as they wickedly dismiss him. When the floodwaters covered the earth, “God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark” (Genesis 8:1), and he buoyed them to safety. God remembered Abraham and rescued Lot from the destruction of Sodom (Genesis 19:29). When the Israelites languished under Pharaoh’s tyranny, “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob” (Exodus 2:24), and he forged a path toward their freedom.

In each case, God’s remembrance of his people was bound to his goodness, his acts of grace, and his eternal character as one “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?” God declares through the prophet Isaiah. “Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:15–16).

He Holds Fast

Although Violet seems a shadow of herself, I draw comfort from the truth that God sees her and knows her. He has engraved her name on his palms and has promised never to leave her or forsake her (Hebrews 13:5). While she has forgotten how to pray, the one worthy of all praise will never forget her.

As you walk with those struggling with dementia, take heart. Dementia reflects the fall, and under its oppression memories wither, fade, and blow away like dry leaves on a gust of wind. But God’s memory is perfect. His grip upon his beloved remains firm whether they recall his name or not. And in Christ, nothing can wrench his people from his love (Romans 8:38–39).

“What do you consider a ‘good death’?”

A furrow creased my eyebrows. The interviewer and I had spent the last ninety minutes discussing the intricacies of end-of-life care, delving into hard topics such as life-support measures, hospice, and advance directives. I navigated those delicate subjects with confidence, but this question so troubled me that I lapsed into silence. “I hate that phrase,” I finally answered.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Really? Why?”

While she awaited my reply, a plethora of faces and voices cluttered my mind. I saw swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks. I felt desperate grasps of my arm as loved ones crumpled to the floor in agony. I recalled the questions that hung in the air after the dying drew their last breath. I heard cries of shock and heartbreak echoing on and on, like breakers on a relentless sea.

“Because death is never good,” I said. The memories gripped me, and my voice caught. “Grief testifies to the backwardness of it. That we cry hints at an undoing of God’s created order. He designed us for something different.”

Is Death Ever Good?

The question of a “good death” may seem reasonable, even natural, given shifting views on death in Western countries. In 2021, ten thousand people in Canada died by physician-assisted suicide (PAS), wherein a doctor prescribes a lethal dose of medication for a person to self-administer, ending his own life. Canadian law now permits individuals with mental rather than terminal illness to pursue the practice. In other words, those who are otherwise healthy but suffer from psychological conditions, like depression, can seek medical help to end their own lives. In the United States, the legalization of PAS creeps across more and more states yearly.

Such trends hint at an increasingly prevalent viewpoint that death, rather than a terrible consequence of the fall, is a reasonable option to escape suffering. According to this thinking, death can be “good” if it provides relief from pain. What is more, the movement reflects a culture that upholds self-determination as an ultimate good; we live for ourselves, rather than for God.

Dear friend, when you encounter such ideas, remember that Scripture refers to death not as a phase to celebrate, but as the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). Death comes to us all, and God can and does work through even this for good to those who love him (Romans 8:28), but never lull yourself into the lie that death itself is anything but the terrible wages of our sin, from which we desperately need salvation (Romans 6:23). Remember that “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).

Scripture is abundantly clear that we were never meant for death. And lest we forget, the experience of grief — to borrow from C.S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain — shouts as with a megaphone to remind us.

For Now We Groan

God has confronted me with the harsh realities of death and grief more frequently than I ever would choose. As a trauma surgeon, I witnessed deaths both sudden and prolonged, peaceful and traumatic. Many of these losses imprinted on my memory, the tragedies and sorrows burned into my mind as with a branding iron.

I’ll never forget the mother who cried, “You were supposed to save my baby!” when I couldn’t rescue her young son from his injuries after a car accident. I remember another mother crawling into her daughter’s hospital bed to hold her as she drew her last breath, how her words eked out, strangled by her sobs. I flash back to the wife who clenched her fists and cried out to the sky, the father who fell to the floor and screamed, the families — so many — who held the hands of their loved ones and wept in subdued, hushed tones as the monitor tracing dwindled. Afterward, they would drift out of the room as though stumbling through a dream, their eyes bloodshot, their minds far away and disbelieving.

In all the moments I spent at the bedside of the dying, I witnessed none where pain did not overcome the survivors. Even in deaths that were anticipated, like those among elderly people who had suffered the ravages of long-standing terminal illness, the loss left scars. Families who voiced acceptance of a loved one’s impending death struggled afterward, blindsided by the abrupt absence of someone dear to them. It was as if a part of their heart had been removed suddenly.

What Death Leaves Behind

Weeks after a death, I’ve had loved ones come and express to me surprise that grief had so afflicted them, and at how deeply the hurt coursed. Reminders of a loved one’s quirks — her fondness for emojis, his habit of calling promptly at eight o’clock in the morning — would break into their days, and suddenly their wounds would open anew. They’d struggle even to breathe.

Death does this. Even in the most merciful of scenarios, like the losses for which we feel prepared, death leaves suffering in its wake. Even when it occurs peacefully and quietly, death guts the hearts of those who remain.

The reality of grief — the phenomenon of heartache after we’ve bid someone farewell this side of heaven — hints that we were made for a different world, a different fate. We were created for neither death nor sorrow, but for God, the one who made us in his everlasting image to steward his vibrant creation, to be fruitful, and to multiply (Genesis 1:22, 27). Apart from him, all creation groans (Romans 8:22). Apart from him, the soul balks at the brokenness into which our sin has plunged us and cries out for rescue.

Man of Sorrows

By grace, God provided the rescue for which our souls so desperately thirst (Psalm 42:1–2). And he accomplished our salvation astonishingly, magnificently, remarkably, through “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

Our Savior knows the burden of grief that so torments us. In Gethsemane, as he anticipated bearing the crushing wrath of God in our place, Jesus was “very sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38), “and being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Even as we cry out and lament, and our hearts break, our hope springs from the work of a Savior who can sympathize with our every pang and tear (Hebrews 4:15). He laid down his life for us, willingly, to free us from the bonds of death that so pain us (John 10:18).

We weep and grieve because our world is fallen, “but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4–5). The sufferings of this world, and our enslavement to sin and death, are precisely why Jesus came. Through the cross, he has overcome the world (John 16:33). Through his resurrection, the wages we once owed have been “swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54). We have been “born again to a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3).

Weep No More

The horrors of death and grief point to our experience as Eden’s exiles, displaced from a world without suffering. Through Christ, the world for which we yearn — a world without tragedy and affliction, a world where death mars no complexion and tears dampen no cheek — is not a lofty ideal or childish daydream, but a promise, an assurance, “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (1 Peter 1:4).

Apart from Christ, our “hurt is incurable,” and our “wound is grievous” (Jeremiah 30:12). Yet by Christ’s own wounds — wounds he suffered as he walked “through the valley of the shadow of death” in our place (Psalm 23:4) — we are healed (1 Peter 2:24). Although for now we groan, Christ is making all things new (Revelation 21:5). When we join him in the world for which we were made, in the new heaven and new earth, he will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Death, that gray shadow harrowing the heart, shall be no more. Grief and sorrow will fade away like withered grass.

And we will “dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6).

On a recent ordinary afternoon, the sight of my daughter engrossed in a game of soccer moved me to prayer. At first, as I watched her fly across the field with her ponytail streaming behind her, her face flushed with determination, I swelled with gratitude for her natural instinct to live exuberantly in the body God has given her. Thank you, Lord, for her contentment.

In the very next breath, however, worry flooded me. She’s eight, I thought. How long will her confidence last? Will she still race against the wind when her straight lines bend into curves? As her body changes, will she revel in our Lord’s craftsmanship — or will she curl inward, lifting her eyes only to cast awkward glances at the mirror?

I lifted up a new prayer: Father God, please let her continue to see the body that you’ve given her as a gift. Help her to live in her womanly body as one loved and redeemed. Help her, no matter how the years change her, to know she belongs body and soul to you.

She Walks in Beauty?

Throughout the ages, artists have celebrated the elegance and loveliness of the female form in verse, paint, and marble. “She walks in beauty,” Lord Byron famously wrote, “like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes.” While such lofty praise tantalizes and flatters, in our fallen world the realities of living in a womanly body are far more complicated.

When God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, he ordained that one of the most fundamental experiences of womanhood would be painful: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16). There was a physical, corporeal consequence to our spiritual rebellion. Whether we bear children or not, that curse permeates life in a female body.

“Our bodies echo God’s good work in uniquely creating women to nurture life.”

The first inklings of trouble often surface in adolescence. As little girls, we race and climb like the boys, and for a few years we may even stand a head taller, thanks to our jump on the growth curve. Then puberty hits, and suddenly we swell in unexpected places. Clothes don’t fit quite right. Pimples dot noses, and hair darkens once-bare skin. In the face of unstoppable changes, insecurities bubble up and wash away our comfort in the body God has given us.

While boys also stumble through adolescence, research suggests that the toll on girls is especially high. One UK study found that almost half of surveyed adolescent girls reported frequent anxiety about body image, compared with only one-fourth of boys. The finding mirrors previous research suggesting that girls experience more dissatisfaction with their appearance and weight. Unsurprisingly, eating disorders are more than twice as prevalent among girls as boys.

Groaning in the Body

The complexities of life in a female body don’t end with our teenage years. If God blesses us with children, we marvel at how he has equipped the female body to sustain and nourish life — yet we do so while swamped with pain, exhaustion, and insecurity. Pregnancy breeds anticipation and wonder — along with aching joints, three months of nausea, another three months of insomnia, and countless other discomforts as our bodies stretch and groan. (My personal favorite was a repeatedly dislocating rib, a gift from my daughter in the third trimester.)

Then there’s the actual birthing process. Though lauded as magical on social media, in reality it’s painful, frightening, and fraught with danger for ourselves, our babies, and our families. When those long-awaited newborns enter our arms, we cry tears of elation but also face new trials. If we can’t nurse, we feel like failures. The continuous needs of an infant deplete us. Tumultuous shifts in our hormones can leave us feeling desolate, even depressed.

We stumble through motherhood, vocation, or both for decades, and then menopause hits. Our hair thins. Lines reflecting a tendency to laugh or worry permanently crease our faces. The baby weight that we promised to lose becomes a permanent fixture on our hips. A laundry list of medical problems piles up alongside a litany of advertisements that guarantee shiny hair and supple skin. Amid the deluge, we worry that we’re unattractive, undesirable — and no longer womanly.

So, while we can say with Lord Byron that beauty marks our God-given bodies, the mundane and awkward features of living in them confirm that we still walk in a sin-stricken world.

Wonderfully Made

Amid the mire of culture and social media, our aching muscles and unwieldy hormones, we can lose sight of God’s goodness. The truth is that, while fallen, our bodies remain good even as we age and change because God made them good (Psalm 139:13–14). He created Eve because Adam needed a helper: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). God’s call for people to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) hearkens back to his design of women, whom he created to support new life.

The value of our bodies, therefore, resides not in what we accomplish by our own hands — not in the litheness of our limbs or in the firmness of our skin — but rather in what he has done, and continues to do through us.

Even if the Lord ordains that we remain childless, our bodies echo his good work in uniquely creating women to nurture life and to complement our male counterparts. Our minds work differently from those of men; while individuals vary, women overall have greater deftness in fine motor coordination, language skills, and memory, abilities that equip us to teach and guide those in our midst. While men have more muscle mass, our muscles more readily resist fatigue and recover at a faster rate, and we’re less prone to the effects of sleep deprivation. A woman’s body can endure the long, hard hours often required to care for others.

Even more important than such differences, however, is how God has made men and women similar: he created both in his image, for his glory (Genesis 1:26). And he has redeemed both through the blood of his beloved Son, who is making all things new (Revelation 21:5).

Means to Worship

Christ’s death and resurrection transform our relationship with every aspect of life, including our bodies. Rather than something to hide, bemoan, or idolize, the body is a means to worship. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” Paul writes. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).

As women redeemed, we aim for modesty, for holiness, and for good stewardship of our feminine vessels (Ephesians 4:22–24; 1 Timothy 2:9–10). For our call “to glorify God and to enjoy him forever,” as the Westminster Catechism puts it, manifests itself in the way we use our bodies, not just in how we focus our minds and hearts.

“Rather than something to hide, bemoan, or idolize, the body is a means to worship.”

We can, as Paul entreats us, “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,” resisting conformity to the world and committing instead to the renewal of our minds — and bodies (Romans 12:1–2). Rather than carnal spectacles for others to ogle, our bodies are godly gifts, entrusted to us so that we might worship him, glorify him, and walk in the good works that he has already prepared for us (Ephesians 2:10).

Sure Hope for Frail Bodies

For the Christian woman weary of life’s physical toll, this news is cause for rejoicing. Our bodies remain good no matter the season of life through which we tread, no matter how we sag and ache, because Christ has made us new. The worth of our form hinges not on fashion trends, but on God’s one and only Son — who gave his life so that we might live, even as our bodies age.

In him we are never misshapen, withering, or out of style. Rather, we are members of “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

As we talk with our daughters, whether with little girls racing across a soccer field or with teens scrutinizing themselves in a mirror, the gospel informs our conversations and infuses them with hope. Jesus redeems not only our souls, but our bodies, and so we reassure them that their shifting contours have a God-given purpose. If Christ has made them new, they can shut out the imagined reproach of others and instead embrace their identity in him.

No matter how awkward they feel, they were made women for a purpose. No matter how the world would chastise or pressure them, they are redeemed and made alive in Christ. And as image-bearers of the one true God, the female body in which they move and strive and love is very good (Genesis 1:31).

Midway through my surgical training, the suffering I witnessed on a single night in the ER pitched my faith into turmoil.

I was a nominal Christian, with an understanding of God grounded in sentimentality rather than biblical truth. When paramedics rushed three dying young men through the sliding doors of my emergency department, my meager faith unraveled. One teenager had been bludgeoned with a baseball bat while his 4-year-old son watched; another had been stabbed in the chest; a third, shot in the head. In each case, I fought and failed to save their lives, and then watched helplessly as their families crumpled to the ground in grief.

I had dealt with tragedy in the ER before, but not to this extreme. After work the next morning, I felt hollowed, as if a vital part of me had been torn out from its roots. Although my body ached for rest, I drove two hours from home in desperation to connect with something good and true. I stopped at a bridge spanning the Connecticut River and tried to pray, but through closed lids I saw only the blood staining my gloves and three boys’ eyes fixed in their final gaze. I could still hear their mothers’ screams as they collapsed to the floor in anguish.

As I stood on that bridge, I wrestled with grief. I wrestled with guilt. And over and over again, the question troubled me: How could a good God allow this? How could he allow people to look at one another, to perceive no worth, and then to devastate life with a trigger pull or a swing of a bat?

After years of stumbling through life without Scripture, the only answer I could discern that day was silence. I decided that God must not exist, and as I trudged back to my car, I abandoned my faith on that bridge.

Yet God did not abandon me. Within a year, he would use my pain — the very calamity that had cracked my brittle faith in two — to draw me to himself.

Age-Old Question

While few people glimpse the tragedies and triumphs of the trauma bay, questions about suffering and faith have troubled humankind for ages. For centuries, academics and laypeople alike have wrestled with “the problem of pain,” as C. S. Lewis phrases it. The problem, in brief, is how a benevolent and all-powerful God could permit pain and suffering in the world he created.

Lewis himself penned an entire book to address the question. In The Problem of Pain, he argues that pain and suffering are in fact compatible with, rather than contradictory to, the God of the Bible. His commentary includes a famous quote that struck me like a thunderclap in the wake of my own faith struggles, and that continues to guide and refine me whenever hurts break into my days: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (91).

Problem of Pain

Lewis himself was no stranger to suffering, having lost his parents at an early age and fought in World War I. And then later, he would grieve his wife’s untimely death. In The Problem of Pain, such personal experiences nuance his writing and combine with his deftness as an apologist to offer a thorough, careful exposition of suffering through a Christian lens.

In keeping with his tradition of intellectual rigor, Lewis offers a particularly strong argument for suffering as a necessary consequence of the fall. “Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil,” he writes. “Every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt” (90). Pain and suffering are the penalties for our corruption of the created order (Genesis 3:16–19; Romans 6:23), and they signify our rebellion against a good and holy God.

And yet, Lewis does not oversimplify the place of suffering in the Christian life. Instead, he acknowledges that God can and does work through pain for the ultimate good of his people (Romans 8:28). Given our depravity, Lewis argues, God’s love for us must necessarily be corrective and remedial (Hebrews 12:6). With hearts like ours, to give us what we always desire would be to ignore the reproof necessary to shape us into the image of Christ.

Smashing Our Idols

Left to ourselves, Lewis notes, we are content to cleave to our sins and to make idols of what we fashion with our own hands (Romans 1:25). “The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it,” he writes (90). Through the “megaphone” of pain, therefore, God prods us to acknowledge our need for him, for our good and for his glory:

Now God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as He leaves us any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for. . . . What then can God do in our interests but make “our own life” less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible sources of false happiness? (94)

“Pain rouses us from spiritual deafness, convicts us of sin, and reminds us that his grace is sufficient.”

According to Lewis, when pain crashes into our lives, it prompts us to seek happiness in God rather than in our own self-sufficiency. It rouses us from spiritual deafness, convicts us of sin, and reminds us that his grace is sufficient and his power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Pain, then, is entirely compatible with a good, powerful, and loving God, and in fact speaks of his love for us — a love that is neither sentimental nor flimsy, but robust and self-sacrificial. A love so radical that he gave his only Son for us (John 3:16).

Rousing a Deaf World

Although Lewis builds his analysis with reason and logic, his assertions have biblical precedent. As Paul explains in Romans 1:18–23, evidence of God’s existence surrounds us in abundance, but we shield our eyes from his glory. We jealously cultivate the fallacy that we are entirely in command and self-sufficient, that we have no need for him, and that we owe him no debt. We do what is right in our own eyes rather than seek God’s will and righteousness (Proverbs 14:12; 21:2).

Meanwhile, God knows what we need (Matthew 6:8) and will work through our pain to steer us back to his guiding light and love. The Bible is replete with such examples. Jonah, the wayward prophet, ran from God and didn’t pray until he was locked within the darkness of the fish’s belly (Jonah 2:1–9). Jesus waited until Lazarus had died before journeying to his home, so he could reveal to the mourning throng that he was the Christ (John 11:15, 40–42). Samson repented of his transgressions and defeated the Philistines only after God had stripped away his strength and his pride (Judges 16:28–29). Throughout the Bible, God works through suffering to awaken his people to their need for him.

“Throughout the Bible, God works through suffering to awaken his people to their need for him.”

After I walked away from God, I had no claim to hope. I discerned no meaning, no glint of mercy lining the dark moments. I saw only the horror of life, the pervasive suffering.

And in that darkness, God roused me to look to him.

Rousing Me to Faith

For a year after that night in the ER, living felt a lot like dying. Without God infusing the world with purpose, despair tarnished everything. In this ghostly state, existing but not thriving, I ruminated daily about taking my own life.

Then, while I was working in the ICU, I witnessed a patient’s improbable recovery in response to prayer. Had darkness not enveloped me, I might have dismissed the event as an outlier, but my time in the wilderness had primed my soul for God. My journey through pain had ignited in me a thirst for him and for his word.

One evening, I trudged home bedraggled and exhausted after a trauma call, and for the first time I cracked open a Bible, its cover sheathed in a layer of dust. I read Romans 5:1–9, burst into tears, and reread verses 3–5 as sunset spilled over the horizon:

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Not only are pain and a loving God compatible, but on this side of the cross, we can rejoice in our sufferings. God works through our pain to refine us, to strengthen us, and to instill us with hope. He works through it to draw us to himself, to rouse us as with a megaphone, and to convict us of our desperate need for him. He works through our suffering because — like a father guiding his children toward the one right path — he loves us (Matthew 7:13–14).

God used my time in the darkness to rouse me to his grace. He used it to open my eyes to the truth that his own Son also suffered. Our Savior knows our agonies (Hebrews 4:15). He bore the Father’s wrath for us. And when we are downtrodden, weary, and crushed beneath the suffering of this world, he is gentle and lowly and offers a light burden for our souls (Matthew 11:28–30).

A dear friend in Christ once recounted to me her years-long struggle with chronic illness. As she described the seemingly endless treatments, their failures, and the pain and exhaustion that prevented her from partaking in the activities that brought her joy, a part of my heart broke. Having witnessed the toll such suffering can take on the spirit, I asked her how she managed to cling to God’s goodness in the hard moments.

She didn’t hesitate. With a firm nod, and with her eyes shining with gratitude, she replied, “I know that I’m not my own, but belong — body and soul, in life and in death — to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.”

“When our own fallenness overwhelms us, we can rejoice that we belong to the One who laid down his life for us.”

The poignancy of her reply struck me. She had recited the answer to question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism, a centuries-old doctrinal statement that beautifully captures the central elements of the Christian faith. Over time after this conversation, when the wages of sin encroached upon my own life, I too found myself repeating these words, and thanking the Lord that when our own fallenness overwhelms us, we can rejoice that we belong to the One who laid down his life for us (John 10:11; 1 John 3:16).

Heidelberg Hope

In the mid-1500s, Prince-Elector Friedrich III von der Pfalz presided over the Palatinate, a region in southwestern Germany where heated controversies had arisen among several Reformed groups. Friedrich commissioned Zacharias Ursinus, a student of Philip Melanchthon, to draft a systematic presentation of the main points of Christian doctrine to help settle the disputes.

Ursinus and his contributors completed the first edition in the spring of 1563, and although the catechism didn’t unite the various Protestant movements as Friedrich had hoped, its careful and thorough explication of the gospel proved invaluable in discipleship thereafter. As evidence of the catechism’s impact, in 1619 the Synod of Dort adopted the document as the second of the Dutch Reformed Church’s Three Forms of Unity (along with the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dort).

The current version of the Heidelberg Catechism consists of 129 questions and answers, organized into 52 sections to allow for weekly study over the space of a year. Entries fall within the three main categories of Misery, Deliverance, and Gratitude — nicely captured by the mnemonic Guilt, Grace, Gratitude:

Misery: an exposition of our sinful, fallen state
Deliverance: how God delivers us from this sin and misery through Christ
Gratitude: how our deliverance should prompt us to thank God (that is, how we should live this side of the cross)

Body and Soul, Life and Death

To introduce the three headings, the catechism begins with a question that forms the beating heart of the entire document. This is the question my friend so thoughtfully quoted, and to which so many saints reliably turn for solace when the slings and arrows of life assail them:

Question: What is your only comfort in life and death?

Answer: That I am not my own, but belong — body and soul, in life and in death — to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

After this stunning statement, the catechism further expounds upon our salvation in Christ:

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has delivered me from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, also assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. (Creeds and Confessions of the United Reformed Churches in North America, 73)

Question 1 reminds us, in clear, powerful words, of the most crucial, formative truth in our lives as believers: we are no longer slaves to sin (John 8:34, Romans 6:16, 22) but instead belong wholly, entirely, to our Savior Jesus Christ.

Our Only Comfort

The carelessness with which we sling around the word comfort in daily life can lead us astray when we consider question 1. Too often, discussions of comfort inspire thoughts of material things: cozy socks and a steaming cup of tea, a good book, or cookies fresh from the oven. Diving deeper, we may think of a loved one’s embrace, reassuring news to calm our worries, or relief from aching pain.

The word comfort in the Heidelberg Catechism, however, conveys much more weight than any of these associations suggest. As Kevin DeYoung writes, the German word in the text, trost, relates to the English word “trust,” and communicates certainty (The Good News We Almost Forgot, 22). The catechism isn’t prompting us to consider what will make us comfortable, but rather what in life and death — indeed, in all of existence — can bring us true solace. Where do we find assurance? As we reflect upon our own inability to redeem ourselves, where do we find hope?

Our nature as a race is to seek the answer here below. We all yearn for meaning and rest, and so we throw ourselves headlong into our careers, our relationships, and our worldly identities to fill the hollow in our hearts. We crave the momentary thrills of possessions and accolades. We try to dull our pains with diversions, distractions, and even chemical means.

“True comfort comes only from the One who has overcome the world.”

Ultimately, all such pursuits fail us. “I have seen everything that is done under the sun,” the Preacher writes, “and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14). The diversions of this world may soothe our wounds for an hour or a day, but eventually the sores throb again, and the ache penetrates deeper. True comfort — the peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7) and abides with us through all trials — comes only from the One who has overcome the world (John 16:33). “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,” Jesus invites us, “and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Not Our Own

The idea that we are not our own is radical in our era, when Western society idolizes self-actualization. Even a casual perusal of social media reveals the predominant view that our feelings define our identity. According to the world, we’re to craft and mold our own image, declare our own destiny, and “live our best life.” According to the world, we belong to no one except ourselves.

While upon a cursory glance such principles may seem alluring, they buckle and crack beneath the strain of a sinful world. No matter how fervently we pursue our personal truth and seek to glorify ourselves, calamities strike that we can neither circumvent nor control. Illnesses overwhelm us. Natural disasters decimate our homes. Personal sins creep into and destroy the relationships we hold dear. Our hearts break, and we find ourselves unable to sort the pieces of our shattered lives. Far from guiding us toward truth, the stirrings of our own hearts inevitably lead us to destruction: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

In contrast with this desolation, Christ offers us a spring welling to eternal life (John 4:14). What relief to know that our greatest comfort — our peace, the deep meaning for which we all yearn — neither begins nor ends with our own weary, broken, weather-beaten hands. What solace to know that when we falter, Jesus carries us (Luke 15:4–6). When our efforts to save ourselves fail — and they always will — God lavishes us with grace. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us,” the apostle John writes, “that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1).

We are not our own, but through Christ, we are God’s children. We belong to Jesus, the good shepherd (Psalm 100:3; John 10:11). And by God’s grace, nothing can snatch us from his hand (John 10:27–28; Romans 8:38–39).

Wholly Christ’s

The opening words of Heidelberg not only provide a wellspring of comfort, but they also call us to discipleship. The message that we belong to Christ stirs within us an abiding faith and gratitude that transforms the way we live. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” writes Paul. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).

John Calvin powerfully reflects upon this truth in his Institutes:

We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us forget ourselves and all that is ours.

Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for Him and die for Him. We are God’s: let His wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward Him as our only lawful goal. (3.7.1)

We are God’s adopted children. We belong not to the world, not to ourselves, but to Jesus. This truth is our only comfort in life and death, our only light through the stormy seas, our only hope when the darkness encroaches. It defines us in a broken world. And it spurs us on to live not for ourselves, but for his glory (Romans 14:7–8).