“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).

For the past two years, the realities of life in a pandemic have posed enormous challenges for parents. In the best cases, masks and testing, remote learning and limited childcare have strained family rhythms and routines. In the worst, COVID has claimed the lives of loved ones, stirring our kids to wakefulness as they grieve and wrangle with questions that cut to the heart of their faith: Why would God allow a pandemic? Why didn’t he save my loved one? Is God really good?

Such questions are so vital to our children’s faith that parents can buckle under the pressure of how to respond. During such moments, we can first and always turn to Scripture, all of it breathed out by God and profitable for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16). When their own questions arose during the pandemic, a deep dive into the book of Job helped my kids appreciate that God works all things for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28), even when we can’t comprehend his specific designs. I’ve been grateful to God for how his word has guided our kids during hard moments, anchoring them in the storm.

And in between the hard moments, I’ve also been grateful for another gift, far less weighty, but one that reflects the truths my kids read in Scripture: a hobbit, whose adventures in Middle-earth point our kids back to God’s word with every reading.

Gift of Stories

No fiction can replace God’s inspired word. Yet during these strange times, the right stories — those that applaud goodness in the face of terror, hope against all hope, and celebrate the just, true, and lovely (Philippians 4:8) — can help point our kids to the one true Story: Christ crucified and risen for us.

“The right stories can help point our kids to the one true Story: Christ crucified and risen for us.”

I first glimpsed the power of great stories to enrich our gospel teaching while reading The Fellowship of the Ring with my kids. My son and daughter munched peanut butter and jelly while Frodo and his companions fled across the bridge of Khazad-dûm. As Gandalf wheeled about to face the Balrog, my kids paused mid-bite and leaned in, enraptured. The bridge gave way; my kids leaned in farther. Then the Balrog’s whip lashed around Gandalf’s ankle. The beloved wizard urged the fellowship to save themselves, and then he sank into the abyss.

I paused and studied my kids warily. Finally, my son spoke up. “I think he gave himself for the others, Mum,” he said. “Kind of like Jesus did for us.”

Dozens of similar moments have since burst through our read-aloud time. An abridged version of Oliver Twist elicited comments about how we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), are to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:36–40), and are to extend compassion to the poor (Zechariah 7:10). The Ring of Power in The Lord of the Rings inspired conversations about sin, how it entices and then enslaves us, and how it burdened Frodo just as Christian’s pack encumbered him in Pilgrim’s Progress.

As we read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on the couch, my little girl paused between mouthfuls of goldfish to smile as a gleaming albatross appeared in the sky to guide Lucy Pevensie out of danger. When Aslan’s voice boomed, “Courage, dear one,” my daughter remarked, “It’s kind of like the Holy Spirit appearing.” I wiped away tears.

J.R.R. Tolkien believed that such moments in narratives occur because the very best stories resonate with gospel truth. In his essay On Fairy Stories, he writes the following:

The peculiar quality of “joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. . . . It may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. (77–78)

In other words, good stories delight us because they reflect the true Story — the Christian Story — and point us to the hope of the ultimate happy ending: our adoption as God’s children through Christ’s death and resurrection.

How do we reap these joys and wonders for our kids? How do we make the most of our read-aloud time, and point them to the true happy ending?

Give Them Scripture First

The fact that Tolkien has an enormous secular fan base illustrates that great stories alone can’t instruct us in the gospel. Stories can enliven the imagination and fan the sparks of a child’s understanding into flame — but we need to light those sparks first. Great stories will point to the gospel only if our kids first know God’s word.

“Great stories will point to the gospel only if our kids know God’s word.”

The Bible is clear that we’re to infuse our kids’ days with Scripture, allowing it to spill over into every moment as we walk in the way, lie down, and rise (Deuteronomy 6:6–7). It’s to seep into what we read with them, what we laugh about, what we share. The Bible informs how we live, not only during devotions, but in every moment of the day.

Teach your kids that God’s word is a lamp to their feet and a light to their path (Psalm 119:105). Then help them to perceive glimmers of his truth through stories.

Pick the Best Stories

How do we discern whether a story we read with our kids reflects the world, or the One who has overcome the world? Paul’s words on discernment can guide us:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)

Seek books with pages that overflow with the true, pure, and lovely. Educator Charlotte Mason referred to “living books” as the sustenance for children’s minds, and described such literature as “the fit and beautiful expression of inspiring ideas and pictures of life” (Parents and Children, 263). Search for such books that explore our sinful nature with humility, point to our hope in Christ with reverence, and highlight the victory of good over evil. If you’re not sure, sites such as The Read-Aloud Revival offer helpful booklists and reviews.

Draw Out Gospel Themes

As you read with your kids, be alert to biblical themes. Look for the redemptive arc in each story — the character arc or plotline that points to our salvation in Christ. The following brief list includes some examples of redemptive arcs:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Aslan giving his life to save Edmund
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Aslan saving Eustace from his fate as a dragon
The Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf giving his life for the fellowship
The Return of the King: Aragorn returning to rule over a kingdom made new
The Wingfeather Saga: Janner giving his life to save the Cloven

While these examples reflect the works of Christian authors, even less-overt literature can prove instructive if approached with discernment. Shakespearean tragedies vividly portray the destructive power of sin. Dickens stirs us to compassion for the poor, for widows, and for orphans (Deuteronomy 10:18; James 1:27). The Cricket in Times Square and Charlotte’s Web highlight love for neighbor and hope in despair. And Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson (we read the abridged versions) illustrate God’s faithfulness and provision.

Even the bad guys from Greek mythology can offer teachable moments: when we openly discuss the brutality and lasciviousness of Zeus, the false deity withers before the majesty, mercy, and holiness of the one true God.

Beyond the End

Great stories leave imprints upon the heart and mind that linger long after “The End.” Stories shape us, leaving marks that never fade. And when Christian themes weave through stories like glittering threads, those marks point our children to the hope that endures in the face of even the deepest darkness. The best stories point us to the one true Story, the greatest Story of all. The best stories point us to Christ.

And the ending of his Story is perfect. It will never disappoint. It flows like a cool cup of living water, ushering us to eternal life. The King, the One who bore our burdens (Isaiah 53:4), will return. The cursed ring will burn up. And in this ending, the greatest of all happy endings, we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23:6).

At the end of his life, my friend David leaned into Christ’s promise of rest. The hope he drew from that promise so comforted him that he spent his last moments witnessing to others.

He’d endured a long, arduous struggle with end-stage emphysema. For months he ricocheted back and forth between the hospital and rehab, and wrestled with fear, doubt, and exhaustion as the simple act of breathing became a burden. “I’m so tired,” he would say, between gasps of air. “I just wish I knew what God is doing.”

Yet even when David could barely breathe, he felt an urgency to share the hope and peace he gleaned from the gospel, so he diligently planned a funeral that would offer Christian hope to all in attendance. When my kids and I visited him the day before he died, we found him sitting at a table with his laptop open to a letter he wanted read during the service. He passed into Jesus’s arms a little over 24 hours later.

I was privileged to read the passages he chose for his funeral, and tears sprang to my eyes when I saw his most cherished verse among them. It was a verse that had offered him a cool cup of water in arid times, and he now ensured that it would be offered to the gathered mourners so that they too might find comfort: “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” (Matthew 11:28–29).

Seeking a Hidden Rest

In our world that prizes productivity over stillness, rest seems an alluring but ever-elusive gift. A startling number of Americans struggle with sleep deprivation, and more than half of American employees report symptoms of workplace burnout.

The tourism industry in the United States generates over one trillion dollars in revenue each year, as we flee our hometowns with the hope that ocean breezes, mountain air, or a change in scenery might finally calm our frayed nerves. Inevitably, when the vacation weeks fly by, and we return home sunburned, weary, and deflated, we wonder how the refreshment we sought has escaped us yet again. While our Lord calls us to “be still” and know he is God (Psalm 46:10), we never seem to find the time.

Meanwhile, the travails of life exhaust us. Businesses fail. Disasters strike. Loved ones fall ill, and some die. Our bodies wither and break, and our hopes along with them. Pain and loneliness, grief and worry weigh down our souls, and we find ourselves broken, parched, exhausted, and yearning for stillness. For relief. For rest — that cool cup of water that never seems to come.

Fallen from Rest

We yearn for rest because God made us in his image, and he set apart a day of rest during creation (Genesis 1:26; 2:2). As reflections of him, we too must pause from our labors and revel in his goodness. Sadly, no matter how diligently we strive, or how ardently we yearn, such rest slips from our grasp over and over, because although we’re made to rest, we’re also fallen in sin.

“Wrenched from fellowship with our loving Father, weary in our sins, we toil and ache for rest.”

God provided rest from the first, walking with Adam and Eve “in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8). Yet in their rebellion, our first parents unleashed sin into the world, and in so doing, tore us from the respite with the Lord for which we were made. Since the fall, sin has tainted our work, and dragged down our efforts with weariness: “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. . . . By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground” (Genesis 3:17, 19).

Wrenched from fellowship with our loving Father, weary in our sins, we toil and ache for rest. We pine for relief, but find we are “like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt” (Isaiah 57:20).

Since the fall, mankind has secretly yearned for the peace that comes not from the toil of our own hands, but from communion with the loving, sovereign Creator who gives us life and breath and everything else (Acts 17:25). And over millennia, the prophets have clung to God’s promise that while we can’t usher in that rest ourselves, he would pave a path for us. He would save us.

God’s Promised Rest

Lamech hoped God would bring this relief through his son, Noah: “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (Genesis 5:29). Moses and Joshua hoped for respite in Canaan.

Yet even after the floodwaters receded, or the walls of Jericho crumbled to the ground, mankind largely remained sinful, restless, and alienated from the God of rest. Hundreds of years later, God describes Israel as “a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways. Therefore I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest’” (Psalm 95:10–11).

Still, through his prophets God promised an eternal jubilee, an ultimate Sabbath, when those who mourn would be comforted, and righteousness and praise would “sprout up before all nations” (Isaiah 61:11). He promised freedom from sin and the sweet relief of communion, at last, with our holy God, “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6).

He promised rest in Christ.

Rest for Our Souls

Jesus invites those who are weary, burdened, and heavy laden to savor the rest he offers (Matthew 11:28-30). Relief from the yoke of the law and from our toilsome labors. Rest for the soul. The restoration of God with his children, to abide together in his rest for all eternity.

Right now, we live on in a sin-stricken world. But when Christ returns, God will dwell among us, and “he will wipe away every tear, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

“Jesus invites those who are weary, burdened, and heavy laden to savor the rest he offers.”

Although we stoop with weariness, when we place our faith in Christ, we have assurance. Jesus will return. He has overcome (John 16:33). “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9–10).

During his walk upon the earth, my friend David endured homelessness, drug addiction, breathlessness, and the despair of a life whittled away by disease. Yet, ultimately none of these hardships overcame the promise God gave him in Christ: rest for his weary soul. The world wore him down, but Christ promised an easy yoke. A light burden. A heart, mind, and body made new by God’s grace, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

The effects of sin strangle us. The woes we carry crush us. But in Christ, we who labor and are heavy laden find rest for our souls. And in him, we have hope.