Getting Over Grief (February 26, 2006)

"How long will you mourn for Saul?" (1 Samuel 16:1)

I was surprised how much those words took me aback when I read them in preparation for a Sunday School lesson on David. Before David's story begins, God has to tell a very depressed Samuel to "get over it." The first king that he had anointed, Saul, proved unworthy. Saul's line was supposed to continue forever, but now his kingship would not even make it to the second generation. What a blow! Samuel had selected, supported and pinned his hopes on Saul. When Saul turned away from the Lord, Samuel grieved. It would have been wrong not to.

Just as it would have been wrong for him to go on grieving forever. There comes a moment when you have to say "O.K., enough, time to move on."

Of course you can't say that right away. The Lord himself "grieved" over having made Saul king (1 Samuel 15:35). Jesus paused a while to weep over the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35). Job's friends grieved with him seven days (Job 2:12-13), and that turned out not to be long enough.

I don't know what is the right amount of time to grieve. It varies depending on the loss. We grieve little at the passing of an aged saint; much at the sudden departure of a young man. Then again, Israel "grieved for Moses...30 days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over" (Deuteronomy 34:8) - but even one day was too long to mourn the wicked young traitor Absalom (2 Samuel 19:1-8).

People differ on what they feel they have a "right" to grieve over. When I heard a young preacher talk about how much he and his wife suffered when she miscarried early in her pregnancy, I remembered my mother saying that a woman should not even announce that she is with child until she is pretty far along. All child-bearers miscarry, she said (she herself had lost several that way), and, relative to losing
a full-term baby, it is a minor sorrow that should be borne quietly.

It is hard for those who have not suffered a particular loss to intuit its severity. My sister lost both her son (he was murdered) and her husband (he cheated on her and abandoned her) the same year. Which is harder - to lose a son to death or a husband to wickedness? According to my sister, it is not even close: her husband's betrayal was worse than death.

But even deaths and worse-than-deaths must not be allowed to hold hostage forever our duties of work and our pursuits of joy. My mother sometimes quoted Joshua 1:2, where God says bluntly, "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you...". That is, quit crying about Moses and get busy with the task at hand.

May God give us grace to know the opportune time when we must discard righteous sorrow in order to resume even more righteous activity. And may he supply all the strength for that too. We'll need it.