Guided by the Word

A periodic mailing from Berachah Bible Church's pastor-teacher,
R. J. Krystowiak

Surprised by Grief

July 5, 2025

Before long, sleep fled. I’d have trouble falling asleep at night, or I’d wake up during the night and be unable to return to sleep. I was irritable. I wasn’t communicating well with Erica. During my study hours I’d focus poorly and struggle with diligence. Something had changed, and something needed to change. Such was life last week, after I returned from my grandpa’s graveside service.

Like many of you, I’m acquainted with grief. I’ve known loss. I’ve walked beside others grieving for people they’ve lost. Many have suffered greater losses than what I’ve known, but I’m no rookie to this human experience.

Despite my life experience, grief caught me by surprise last week. My grandpa passed into eternity months ago. I knew for a while that his graveside service was coming. I purchased the airline ticket weeks in advance. My grandpa loved Christ. I take comfort in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, and while I grieved this temporary separation, I took comfort in the promise of the resurrection. Yet I learned once again that I am merely human. I have not mastered grief, nor can I predict how I will experience it every time.

Perhaps you have recently been surprised or discouraged by grief. Few things can humble us like loss. We possess no super-human power to bring people back from the dead. We know this. Yet other changes reveal our limited reach as well: a lost job, a move, a failed relationship, sickness, a graduation. We cannot keep things as they are. Change often brings grief, and we just don’t enjoy grieving. Period. 

Here are five factors that contributed to my grief last week. I didn’t realize all these things in the moment, but I’m grateful for Erica’s willingness to help identify them. Perhaps through this sharing you will become more watchful as you endure a season of grief too. First, my depth of sadness surprised me. I slowly realized that several factors contributed to this sadness. For that weekend of mourning, I was among relatives and friends, some of whom I had known a long time. I was also in a location that meant a great deal to me. I ate in the restaurant my grandparents visited countless times. I took a jog by my grandparents’ church, my parents’ high school, and softball fields multiple relatives had played on. I realized what could have been if I had sought to live in the place where my family, for a time, belonged. 

Second, my fast travel and short visit meant that I suddenly, within a few short hours, left my current context and entered into one of strong memories. I hadn’t visited this part of the country for about fifteen years. Then, just over two days later, I was leaving that context to return home. I’m thankful for airline travel, but the short trip brought challenges too. 

Third, I spoke at my grandpa’s graveside service and at his church the following day. What a privilege! I praise God for these opportunities. I also came to realize that by leading through such public ministry of the Word I could not fully grieve as a grandson. 

Fourth, I returned from this weekend trip and immediately entered back into my realms of responsibility. This is life, right? Yet I was not ready. 

Fifth, I experienced this weekend trip without my wife. She wanted to be by my side. I wanted her with me, but as we considered our family and the context of life, we decided together that I would go and she would stay. This meant that as these various factors hit me, she wasn’t present to observe them in real time. 

So, I’ve admitted that grief caught me by surprise, and I’ve tried to identify how this ambush of grief happened on this occasion. What now? Now we turn to God’s Word. Of those five surprises that I’ve identified, the sadness of belonging affected me more than any other sadness. I stood in a cemetery containing the physical remains of generations of my family. I stood at the pulpit from which my grandparents heard decades of sermons. I talked with my dad as he showed me the room where he accepted Christ. Few places on earth hold any comparable sense of belonging for me. So, in this season of grief, with this sadness, I take great comfort in Hebrews 11:13-16.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. [ESV]

God in his Word meets us in our moments of grief. Sometimes those moments continue far longer than we prefer. Sometimes they resolve more quickly. Sometimes they baffle us and surprise us. First, I encourage you to run to God’s Word for comfort during your season of loss. He is the God of all comfort (2 Cor 1:3). Second, I urge you to trust believers close to you with your grief. I thank God for Erica’s willingness to help me. Brothers and sisters, we are not alone.