It is often difficult for Christians to grieve. Sometimes the loss is so palpable it is hard to see the Lord’s goodness. Sometimes a Christian tries to force themself to do what they think is expected of them and not allow the raw emotion to surface.

Madeline is the mother of two teenagers. Adam, at 14, was struggling with leukaemia. Sarah, his 18 year old sister was found to be a match for a bone marrow transplant. As the hospital chaplain I had gotten to know this Christian family months before a decision was made for the transplant to go ahead.

This family was grieving. There was the possibility of Adam dying from his condition but each member of the family was already experiencing various losses. Adam had lost his strength and enthusiasm for sport. Sarah, being identified as a possible donor, had lost her joy of anticipating entering adulthood as, at the same time, she grieved the loss of her healthy little brother who was now weak and sickly. Madeline had lost her joy at seeing her children grow into the young, full of life, adults she had always dreamed of. She had also lost her husband through divorce some years previously and now was feeling that loss again as he was just not present.

The day Adam was receiving his sister’s bone marrow I walked into the waiting room outside the operating theatre where anxious parents were often sitting, staring at the walls. Madeline was there. I asked how she was and she said, “Rejoicing”. The body language didn’t match the word. There was no smile and her eyes just looked straight ahead.

I replied, “Rejoicing?” “Yes,” she said, looking at me, still with no expression in her eyes. “Yes. God is good.” Madeline knew the right things for a Christian to say, but she wasn’t feeling them. Her grief and her fear had come to the fore.

“God is good,” I said, “But this is still pretty damn scary, isn’t it?” I used these words deliberately to see whether they might shake her out of constantly doing what she thought was expected of a Christian and not allowing herself to express what she was really feeling.

Madeline quickly glanced directly into my eyes with a flash of life in her own, and then dropped her gaze to the floor. “Yes, it is scary.” And tears began to flow.

When things go wrong we often ask, “Why?” And there’s no answer. I spent a lot of my time as a chaplain trying to help people rephrase the question to, “How?” “How is God with me in this awful situation?”

There are no standard answers. There is no proper way for a Christian to behave in these circumstances. But there are real, God given, emotions which He wants us to express. The Psalms are godly expressions of anger, doubt, fear, trust and love. God is big enough to hear them all.

It is safe to say that God didn’t want Madeline to stoically “rejoice”. More than likely He was wanting to pull her close, hold her in His arms and allow her to grieve, to be afraid, and for Him to feel her sobbing against His chest. If Madeline could let herself be herself, God was right there for her. She knew God simply in an intellectual sense but was missing out on experiencing Him in her grief.