On Sunday, I shared in full the powerful reflection that Murray Beattie wrote about Lament and Grief, you can listen to it in the sermon or you can read it here or listen to the sermon here. I also asked Leanne Beattie to share her wise perspective and I thought it’d be useful to share it with you all. Thank you Muz and Lea for opening up your faith in the darkest of times for us to be encouraged!

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“Losing friends to sickness or sudden tragedy is not really something you think much about as a young person. It’s assumed that life goes on until you’re old and wrinkly, and then you pass away like your grandparents did.

But then it doesn’t. In the last 12 years, Muz and I have lost 3 friends to sickness or sudden tragedy. The first was Muz’s best friend Pete, hit and killed by a car in 2010, a day after Milo was born. The second was my best friend from uni, Sarajoy, who courageously fought a long 3 year battle with cancer, until May 2020. And the third was my best friend from high school’s husband Matt, who had a heart attack in January 2021.

I think it’s hard to summarise collectively how grief affects you, as each time someone close to you passes away, it is entirely different. Who they were to you, how they passed, and when, all change the way that you process it. One thing remains constant though is that they leave a gaping hole of in the lives of their family and friends, who then in turn unite to remember the son, daughter, brother, sister or friend. You watch as people grapple with the finality of death, even as Christians. YOU grapple with death, even as a Christian. And it sucks.

One thing I’ve learnt is that it’s ok to say that it sucks. It’s horrific, and no amount of nice words or pep talks changes that. I remember when I first found out Sarajoy had brain cancer, which was the secondary cancer she got after she conquered breast cancer. I distinctly remember literally crying to God in anger and confusion ‘Why is this happening? Why can’t you save her? I hate this!!!’

Your human brain can’t comprehend why someone so wonderful, such a light on this earth, a wife and mother, an amazing daughter and friend, would have to go through this, fighting this disgusting disease and ultimately be defeated by it. It doesn’t make sense, no matter which way you look at it. It was the same with Matt and Pete. Why Lord? Why them and not the 85 year old pack-a-day smoking, wretched pedophile in prison? Why not him? Why does he get to live?

And through much wrestling with this, though many questions, the Lord made it apparent to me that it is not my place to know. That he is sovereign and knows all. That my human brain will never understand. Because honestly, it doesn’t make sense.

I turned to the Psalms a lot, as they are real and speak of devastation, sadness, anger and feeling abandoned. They cry out to God with words we often don’t have ourselves.

As I walked the 3 year journey with Sarajoy, it taught me so much about life, and death, and love and patience. About what matters and what doesn’t. As I lay with my dying friend, a day or two before she passed, she was no longer eating, drinking or speaking, and she no longer responded to anyone, I realised that we are just shells that wither and perish, and that our souls and hearts are what make us who we are. And that those souls need to be connected to God. I believe Sarajoy was, as we spoke about Christ and faith often. But I’ll never be 100% certain, and that saddens me. But as I lay with her and held her hand, I sang her amazing grace and prayed that she was on her way to meet her Saviour. Please Lord, let it be so.

Grief definitely goes through stages. Sadness, denial, anger, acceptance. I’ve felt them all and watched my best friend from high school go through them too. Each stage is hard, and there is no end date to each. But it does get easier by the grace of God, and we wrestle and cry and mourn, and gradually the pain lessens and the joy of the memories made with those you’ve lost get easier to remember and rest in. For God has given us people on this earth to make our lives more full of joy and laughter, people to walk through trials and loss with. And what a blessing that is, that he did not expect us to do life alone.”

Leanne Beattie