What Does The Bible Say About Grief?

well good evening and welcome to crowd church uh we are an online church yes we are and beside me is the incredible delightful and all-round good egg who is slightly poorly uh dan dan orange how are you doing buddy i'm doing all right i might have a few coffin fits um i hope you're fast on the mute button [Laughter] uh there we go welcome welcome to ground church great you're here uh great dane that you're here as well thanks for joining us despite the uh the cough and just uh do we all have to wear masks is it covered it's not covered so we're safe so i don't need to put my mask on yeah okay good it's good to hear oh dear uh do uh extend warm love and hugs to dan in the comments i'm sure he would appreciate it either or just do what blokes normally do which is make fun of each other when they're ill either way it works so um yeah do you do that so welcome to crowd church for though if you this is your first time where there's a very very warm welcome to you uh we do church but we just do it online um and we we kind of hopefully do it in an authentic way an accessible way a fun way we do like to have a little bit of banter being english it's part of who we are um but we just love to talk about jesus and just understand how his truth helps us live a more meaningful life so wherever you are in the world wherever you are watching this if you're watching it live you're watching on catch up it's great you're here uh if you are make sure you say hi in the comments as well because why would you not right uh if you would uh like say how many comments we'd love to hear from you uh we've got folks on facebook we've got folks on youtube uh we've got let's see who we go in the comments here we've got jeff the bain ons are on the comments i got sadaf and jeff mixed up their husband and wife team and i thought sad after hacked jeff's account last week but apparently she didn't it was jeff so when it says jeff dan it's really jeff okay i was concerned last when i walked in last week so i didn't quite know what was going on it was just me confusing everybody is basically what i did uh vicky's here with us hey vicky hey matt now matt apparently has had matt cruz in the comments has had his booster jab so his arms a little bit sore so you know send him love and hugs as well a little bit drowsy uh so yeah uh john farrington john farrington is moderating the comments today so um if you see crowd church commenting on facebook that's john behind that and i know he's also commenting as john on youtube so a big warm welcome to john make sure you say how's it to him so yeah great to see everybody here now dan i'm asking this question i i don't even know if you know the answer because we didn't talk about this before we went live what's coming up dan well i might have to wing it a little bit because well i i know there's a great talk from anna yes anna kettle will be talking about grief which is going to be amazing um and very interesting to hear what she's got to say um on the subject yeah and i'm sure she has a bit of a story as well so yeah yeah no looking forward to it so sure there'll be some a lot of questions yeah after that talk yeah yeah that will so if you do have questions or comments uh throughout the livestream throw them in the comments we have something called conversation street a little bit later where we take your questions your comments and dan and i are going to chat about them and talk about them we have some of them here already which you know we always like to pre-prepare so people do send stuff in and so we have some of the questions and stuff which we're going to go through here but if you do have if it raises anything we are talking about grief um and we do want to be sensitive so if you are struggling with something if you are if this brings something up um and you want to reach out to somebody you would like us to pray for you because you know as christians we believe prayer works you can reach us via the website or via the whatsapp number which you see on the screen we would love to hear yeah absolutely so um and do yeah do send stuff in if you if you want to connect uh with what's going on so yeah today is what does the bible say about grief with as john farrington put in the comments with the lovely anna kettle yes so we've got that coming up after the talk we have uh uh just a small sort of worship section um after that we've got like say conversation street dan and i are going to get into your questions and comments and the whole thing's going to last about 60 minutes so we we usually aim to finish around 7 00 p.m here in the uk uh it's now 6.05 so we'll be here another 50 55 minutes but i say do say hi in the comments be great to see dan have i missed anything uh everything that i knew about that you've said well to me five stars okay so if you are new to crowd then let me just explain to you what is going on we are doing a series called what does the bible say about and we ask what does the bible say about key topics like we've talked about science we've talked about um uh well we're talking about grief today for example what does the bible say about grief and digging into that topic a little bit more uh that's what anna cattle is going to talk about for about 20 minutes um before we head into the worship time so without further ado i'm going to push this button on my control panel here and we are going to listen to anna and then dan and i will be back very soon here we go so today i'm answering the question what does the bible say about grief i wanted to start just by saying that if you're grieving whether that's the recent loss or loss of someone in the past i'm so sorry losing someone we love it's just always really hard um i really hope that this talk offers you some small encouragement at this difficult time i also wanted to just acknowledge um i'm no stranger to grief myself and in fact it's something that i've been through quite a lot over the last few years and particularly as i've walked through several recurrent miscarriages and in fact in one year um i even lost two babies within the space of less than six months so for me and my husband grief is quite a familiar experience and although i certainly don't have all the answers it's a subject which is pretty close to my heart and something that i've had to wrestle with a lot in the last few years so that's where i'm coming from um i'll talk a bit more about my experience as we work through this but i just wanted to really pick out six things that have been really helpful to me and thinking about these big subjects of death grief and how we find hope in the midst of the grieving process it's a big topic um i certainly won't do it full justice today but hopefully i'll give you some key pointers that you can take away and start to think about so the first point i wanted to look at is the fact that everyone grieves you know culturally we don't always like to think or to talk about death very much we certainly don't like to think or talk about the fact that we might die or that loved ones might die you know and that's probably understandable to a certain degree but it also means that when it happens we're not always well prepared for it and certainly that was my experience before miscarriage i didn't really have the emotional tools or the ability to know how to process my grief well and also i found that a lot of people around me didn't either that either they didn't know what to say so they just didn't say anything or they didn't know how to deal with it so they just avoided me for a season and you know that's not great either so this is why it's important to talk about grief because everyone grieves grief is sadly a common feature to being human it's something that's guaranteed to come to all of us at some stage in life you know ephesians 2 ephesians 9 verse 2 in the bible puts it like this everyone will die someday death comes to godly and sinful people alike it comes to get good and bad people are like and you know since everyone eventually dies it means we'll all face grief in so even if you're not grieving right now it's really worth taking some time to think about the subject not only will you have to deal with it at some point but there'll also be people around you right now who are grieving whether that's neighbours work colleagues friends or family and it's really helpful to be able to understand how to talk to them about it and to know how to support them best the second point i want to talk about grief um with is that grief can raise really big questions so when we lose someone it tends to bring up a lot of pain and pain raises a lot of questions um about big spiritual matters questions like who is god what's the point of life why did god let this happen um why me why then why now why does god allow suffering you know why didn't he intervene and heal someone and how can i believe god loves me when he allows me to feel so much pain and honestly these are big questions and i don't have fully formed answers for all of them i wish i did because there's certainly questions that i've asked in my seasons of grief but i don't because i'm not god what i do know though is that it's not wrong to have these questions it is totally human and it's totally understandable to have questions about why things happen and in fact even jesus himself when he walked on this earth as a human being questioned god in the face of his own death you can literally read about this in the gospel of matthew chapter 27 verse 46 the very last words that he utters on the cross before he dies when he's facing his own death is this my god my god why have you forsaken me now i find that an incredible thought that even the divine would question the divine in the face of death and grief in some ways i find that incredibly reassuring that it must be okay for us to have questions about our pain and suffering too the third point i want to make about grief is that grief wasn't god's plan for us i think perhaps this is one of the reasons why we find grief so difficult to deal with as human beings is because of exactly this death was never actually meant to be a part of god's plan for us it wasn't his original design for us as human beings to have to deal with it death and grief was not something he wanted us to experience or to have to deal with at all and in fact this is something that we learned right at the beginning of the bible in the very first book of genesis right at the beginning of the story of mankind in chapter 3 we're told about adam and eve who are the very first human beings ever walked the earth and they were made to live eternally in relationship with god and to never have to die we can read all about this in chapter three and it says they walked and talked with him in the garden this garden was called eden and basically it's like this paradise there's no pain no sickness no fear no sadness no conflict no war or death sounds amazing and it was but then they messed things up and they disobeyed god by eating from this one tree that he told them not to touch or eat from unless they die and you can read the whole story about this in genesis 3. but really my main point of bringing it up here is that simply to make this point that death wasn't god's original design for us and that's why we struggle to deal with it and it's really easy to feel angry and to have questions and to blame god when we're hurting particularly when we're hurting because somebody's died but the truth is that it wasn't god's plan for us and knowing this and remembering this i found goes some way at least to answering some of the spiritual questions that grief brings up for me the next point i wanted to make was that god promises to comfort us in our grief in fact the bible tells us over and over again that god doesn't just abandon us to grief he doesn't just leave us to deal with it or not on our own but he draws close to us he cares about our grief and pain and he wants to be involved he doesn't just leave us to grieve but he promises to comfort us and to draw near us as we go through the grieving process an example is in psalm 24 verse 18 it says this the lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves all those who are christian spirit and likewise in psalm 56 verse 8 it says you keep a track of all my sorrows you've collected all my tears in a bottle and i think that is just such a beautiful picture of how intimately god cares about our sadness and our heartbreak that he would collect every tier perhaps perhaps the most um reassuring verse that i've come across is in john 11 35 which is one of the gospel accounts of jesus's life it's actually the shortest verse in the whole bible and it says this simply that jesus wept those two words jesus wept and it's written about the death of his close friend lazarus and i think that whole story is just such a great reminder that in jesus we have a savior he doesn't just sympathize with our pain from afar but actually he fully understands because he's been there too he's walked in the same shoes as us and he knows what it is to lose people he loves as perhaps say the most outrageous claim in the bible about god's comfort to us in our grief is that it's found in matthew 5 4 another one of the gospel accounts of jesus's life and in it he preaches that blessed are those who mourn or grieve that they will be comforted now i don't know about you but i just find this an incredibly mind-bending idea that people who grieve are blessed because when you're in the middle of brief it really doesn't feel like a blessing and i've wrestled with this idea for a long time and i think maybe this is where i land it's that the blessing probably isn't in the grief or the loss itself but rather the invitation that grief can present which is to experience god's comforting presence in a much deeper fuller more rich way than perhaps we've ever needed to know before and i'm sure it probably goes without saying that for me i would never have chosen my current miscarriage to be a part of my story if i could do the his do the last few years of life again and and erase that i would choose that every time but at the same time i also know that if i never walk through that kind of grief and loss there'd be parts of god's character that i wouldn't have experienced yet as well this brings me on to my next point which is that it's possible to grieve with hope you know grieving is a really hard process and i don't make light of it it's hard it's tough it takes a long time to get through and yet as a christian it's possible to go through all those emotions like anger and sadness and confusion and shock and denial and all of those emotions that are commented grieving process it's possible to go through all that but also to know this underlining sense of god's hope and peace even in the midst of those darkest moments and that hope comes from knowing that death is not the final end you know this is really the crux of the christian faith in john 3 16 which is probably the most well-known verse that there is in the whole bible it says this for god so loved the world that he gave his only son that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life and likewise in 1 thessalonians chapter 4 verse 13 it says we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like those who have no hope for since we believe that jesus died and was raised to life again we also believe that when jesus returns god will bring back with him the believers who have died so of course it's still so sad to lose someone as a christian it's a really painful thing and there's no way to bypass that grief because of course we'll still miss that person being with us here and now but at the same time there is this incredible hope and comfort that we can know as believers in jesus that that we can find in in looking forward to heaven and in knowing that we'll see that person again someday in eternity the final point i want to make about grief is that it can be transforming you know grief is not something that any of us get any choice or control over we don't choose how or when we die or when people around us die and we don't really get to choose how we feel about it either but i do think that what we do with it as a choice what we do with our grief is a choice i've spoken to so many other grievers over the last few years who've experienced similar things to me around um baby loss and miscarriage and it's really clear to me that loss is something that imprints quite deeply on the human soul and it leaves us forever changed for better or for worse to coin a popular phrase we can either get bitter or we can get better in our pain and there's this verse um that in a letter from paul which is in two corinthians verse one uh chapter one verse three to four it praise be to the god and father of our lord jesus christ the god of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in trouble with comfort we ourselves receive from god so this verse doesn't just say that god comforts us in our grief which is part of the equation that we've already unpacked but it says more than that it's like a double blessing we don't just have the comfort for ourselves but we can also extend that comfort to others who are hurting too and you know that's certainly been my experience of going through the grieving you know i've experienced god's comfort in really hard times but also through my own grief process i've discovered deeper empathy for others who are hurting too but other grieving mums for example and so much so that last year i helped set up a miscarriage network with a few friends to help support other women facing a similar thing and you know that is not something i would have done before going going through this myself you know i wouldn't have particularly been an empathetic person who would have got alongside grieving mums otherwise so definitely grief can be transformative um that's the part that is our choice because it's only if we take our pain to god and allow him to comfort us and to heal us instead of allowing our pain to make us bitter and angry and to push us away from him so here's the question that i once i want to just finish on and it's this will we allow god to enter into our pain and our sadness and will we trust him with all of those breaking pieces of our heart and allow him to take them and to create something new from it that's the question and that's the choice so i'll just finish with a short prayer for us lord i pray for all those who are grieving right now whether the loss was recent or a long time ago i pray that you would bring your comfort where people are hurting healing where everything seems broken peace where there's questions that are raging and hope where it feels like there's only despair lord your word promises that you are the god who draws near so the brokenhearted so i really want to pray that you would grant us the courage to draw near to you even in our pain and that in doing so we will experience you drawing it to us too oh man no audio thank you dan uh i i was basically saying amen um it was an incredibly emotive topic that uh that uh anna talked about wasn't it very it's not an easy topic but just a wonderful way in which she talked about it so how about you guys so what we're going to do now um we are going to do a time of which by reflection we're just going to play a song um and you can sing along if you like you can just read the words let them minister to you um and and we're going to do that for a couple of minutes then dan and i will be back for conversation street uh feel free to share your comments your thoughts your stories your memories of some of you uh have been doing already in the comments um of lost loved ones um maybe just use this time of worship and reflection just to remember people who we've lost loved and lost along the way but yeah we're going to get into all of that in conversation street afterwards so let's jump straight into it we're going to do a song called how deep the fathers love for us and it's good to remember this uh the truth of these words in a time of grieving so uh dan and i'll be back in a few minutes after this how deep the father's love for us how vast beyond all mention that he should give his only son to make her wretch his treasure how great the pain of searing lord the father turns his face away as wounds which are the chosen ones bring many sons to glory behold the man upon the cross my sin upon his shoulder ashamed i hear my mocking voice call out among the scarface it was my sin that held him there until it was a complex his dying breath has brought me life i know that it is i will not boast in anything no gifts no power no wisdom but i will boast in jesus christ his death and resurrection why should i gain from his reward i cannot give an answer but this i know my heart his wounds have paid my answer but this i know with all my heart his wounds have paid my ransom well welcome back uh so we are asking the question what does the bible say about grief we've just had a talk by anna kell an amazing talk that was too uh dan we were talking about that i mean dan and i talked to each other whilst the music was going on uh worship and we were both saying that was an incredible talk um but yeah anna that was just amazing yeah yeah really good it's really really good and i think the thing to remember uh is that anna's talk comes from a place of having to deal with it and having to face the grieving process much more um that maybe many of us have had to face in the past and i i just i i don't know how to how to put it other than just to say it was super inspiring that somebody who has gone through the pain that she has and the loss that she and andy has and to come out with those six things at the end of that i think is incredible um and um just a real softness of heart and a real humility and beauty towards god which i just i thought was amazing so thank you anna for doing that and thank you for sharing uh yeah thank you very much appreciate it dan what what stood out to you in the talk i mean if that i mean there was obviously a lot in there that anna talked about but what what i wrote a lot down i have to be honest i got two pages of notes i don't know about you but what stood out to you i think um i just thought it was amazing i thought vulnerability to be able to bring that to convey what she'd been through herself and to let us know and and just to show us that what she's learned from it learned seems a funny thing to say but i'm not funny but a strange thing to say but like she mentioned at the end it has changed her life and she's been able to help people through it if she went in time she wouldn't want to do it again but she can because she's been there and i thought that was that was what struck me yeah yeah she asked a really interesting question at the end didn't she where she said that um john's put it here in the comments will we allow god to enter into our pain and our sadness will we trust him with all the broken pieces of our heart and allow him to take them and create something new i thought i mean whether you're grieving or whether you're not grieving that's a that's a fascinating question right there you know it's quite a challenging question so yeah i i the the thing for me you can grieve with hope um that was that i i guess having been through uh loss having gone through loss with people you know sort of by their side the one thing that we say the one thing one of the things that we have as christians is this concept of hope right that actually the end is not the end um and that there is more to life than just a few years on earth and then you know experience this kind of loss so she put here that you know you you can grieve in hope so i guess one of my questions to you dan is how would you define hope if someone said to you what is this hope that you have how would you explain that well that's a little question i just thought i'd go straight in there yeah for me it always comes to the verse that says we have a hope that is steadfast and certain i think outside the bible outside of christianity perhaps we can think of a hope as a wish it's not a wish our hope in jesus christ is steadfast it's not going anywhere and because of that hope we can trust in him and and to me that's that is when i i've not experienced grief in a sort of immediate sense i've experienced it through my my wife um through friends but i know they've got that hope and resurrection that hope that is steadfast without it i don't know yeah how you get through these things um and i'm just glad that we can you can trust in that jeff put in the comments here and thanks for your uh comment jeff i recently lost my grand uh sorry to hear about that who had declining health um along with grief there is a there was a strange sense of relief um is that compatible with the bible's view on how life is viewed as sacred that's a really interesting question isn't it because it's like um i again certainly people who suffered with long-term illness you know there's there's a comfort almost i mean there's the loss and we mourn their loss but there's also comfort that there's no more pain right and um there can almost be a sense of guilt that goes alongside that which says you know i'm happy that they're now pain-free but actually is how do i actually feel about that jimmy said so i get i get where jeff um has come from here and i think it's a really interesting question i don't know if you've got any thoughts on this den not really no i i read that and i thought yeah it is one of those um horrible situations really that we we're losing someone but but we are knowing that their their pain is gone yeah it's um there's a there's an interesting verse in the bible i mean the bible's full of interesting verses but there's there's a verse that says that precious in the eyes of the lord is the death of his servant and so it talks which talks about the preciousness of the death so when there is a passing of one of god's people it is precious in the eyes of god and i think part of the answer for me comes down to how we perceive death and what that actually means because death isn't the end the bible actually in the new testament a lot of time talks about death as um the death of christians as in it uses the word sleep they have fallen asleep it's like become the ultimate sleep if that makes sense and at some point they're going to wake up from that journal in this there's sort of this really interesting twist in terms of how god views death as a sort of a form of sleep and so i would say that yes life is sacred and but precious in the eyes of the lord is the death of his servant and i think um god sees it god feels it and i think there is a case of actually when i mean as christians we believe don't we when we get to heaven the bible talks about there being no more pain i think anna touched on this there is no more death there is no more pain there is no more sorrow there are no more tears that concept of heaven for me like my uncle passed away with cancer and um i had to do his funeral um i took his funeral which was i i've never done the funeral of a family member which i mean it was it was it was it was it was beautiful but at the same time it was just it was new it was a bit unusual i mean i kind of what do you say um how do you bring hope in that situation and i just remember thinking you know what he he he died of an illness he passed away he was in pain there is now heaven where there is no more pain and life is sacred but life carries on and it is eternal and there is this passing and in that passing there is no more death and i can rejoice in that um and be happy that actually my uncle is now pain-free jeremy and i i still think that celebrates the sacredness of of life is how i would answer that question jeff so i hope that's helpful but i i i do agree that actually it's uh it's a fascinating one fascinating question um so thank you for that uh what did jesus say about those who mourn that's a great question and again anna touched on this in matthew 5 verse 4 she said blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted well she didn't say jesus said it and anna just repeated what jesus was saying um what did you think to uh anna's comment there about this whole idea of being blessed when you mourn and that was something that she had to wrestle with yeah there's a verse that i came across this morning and um the message translation if anyone's new christianity i really recommend that you get the message translation in the bible it's not a literal translation it paraphrases things and makes things very easy to understand and brings them across very well the man that translated it wrote this if your heart is broken you'll find god right there if you're kicked in the gut he'll help you catch your breath and i think that comes some way to sort of sum that up that he's that comforter he he helps you catch your breath he he's there to put his arms around you he's there to say i am god be blessed and i don't know how that blessing works but i know he's a god that is a a father that is a loving god that we can that we can trust in yeah i i i agree with that that's a wonderful verse that's a wonderful version of that verse too and i think for me it comes down to how you interpret the word blessing and so in in our sort of culture blessing is you uh i'm blessed means i'm fit well and wealthy jeremy is that kind of god's blessed me because i've got a beautiful wife or god's blessed me because i've got a new car and that's maybe true i mean but i think actually blessing is a much deeper concept and it's a much deeper idea than just that jeremy and i think that's quite surface level and i think it goes much deeper and i love how anna talked about actually in mourning you are there is a comfort um from god that you can get and in that comfort there is there is blessing there is a blessing from god it's it's not fit well and wealthy but it is still blessing i think it's it's just an extraordinary concept because it challenges a lot of notions that you have around blessing and about how life should be um and and so on and so forth in fact one of the questions that came in was why does god allow suffering because the root of all this grief is a pain is suffering and why does god allow that which is probably dan one of the deep theological questions uh that we get asked an awful lot uh in our christian journeys would you agree yeah absolutely i think one of the points that anna mentioned would was that grief can be transforming and transformation and change is often hard and grief is more than hard it's gut-wrenching um but it is transformation and it is something that like anna said she's been able to help others through that situation i know my one of my my best friends i started work 30 years ago with him he lost both his parents about you know a while ago and it's been horrendous but he was such a comfort to lisa my wife when her dad died because he'd been through it and he was able to share he was able to actually say i've been through this um would he want to go through it again but because of that it was something that he's been able to help others through yeah it's and i think what's interesting though about what you say is actually it was hard for him and he has been able to help others and that's the story from anna it's been hard for her but through that she's been able to help others nicholas said in the last six years i've had to live with grief the most hardest was the death of my mum as it was not expected at all and it's been very very tough and i think um i mean i'm sorry to hear about you i mean i know the story of nicholas mum so again sorry nicola it's um it is tough even as christians even with hope even with a belief in christ grief is still a complex thing and it is still tough it's still a loss it's yeah it's getting to grips with things that you did people you spoke to people you can't anymore it's a yeah it's a part that's gone yeah it is and i i and i talked again i'm just i'm just basically stealing all of anna's good ideas i mean she she talked about how you know what was point number two i think it was yeah pain raises lots of um and it does raise lots of questions you know why god why suffering why have you allowed this to happen and you know what i've i've i don't know if i've got all the answers in fact i know i haven't got all the answers geez i wish i did um like and i wish i had the answer there's a couple of things i do know one it was never god's original plan which again and anna touched on and two god enters us suffering with us um which is the most extraordinary truth of the gospel that actually there is pain and there is suffering and jesus gets right into the middle of it um you know through the death burial and resurrection he gets involved in the suffering of humanity he suffers himself he takes upon himself our pains and our sorrows our griefs and the verse that you read out earlier dan i mean it's just incredible that he gets involved with it and i and i find that is one of the most common thing about the christian faith is actually god you know god god the god of the universe um steps down and gets involved in the suffering of humanity and he rides along with us and he goes in all of this i'm with you and i will comfort you uh he doesn't say you will never experience this you'll never experience lost it's like this no no in the middle of this i am with you and i will comfort you uh and it's um it's an incredible truth i think you know that the whole the whole idea of christ entering our suffering with us yeah but in isaiah it says that um jesus was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief and again the message translation changes that too he knew pain first hand when anna talked on the cross he said my god my god why have you forsaken me this is this is god god and jesus had been won through eternity forever and they were separate i mean that is loss that is separation that is um he experienced extreme loss so i believe it's true he can say yeah i've been there i know what you're going through because i've experienced that separation yeah it's now let me just reiterate at this point uh if you are if you are uh in the grieving process and you are struggling and obviously there is a real point again just to echo what anna said and what dana said we're very sorry for your loss and absolutely it's it's not great um but there is hope uh in the midst of that and there is encouragement and if you would like anyone to pray for you uh then please do reach out to us via the website or by the whatsapp number um we would love to pray for you we would uh in whatever way that we can help so do let us now sadaf dan has written here that grief is a continuous process um that is sometimes very raw and other times more muted so it's very up and down which i i i know exactly what she means and i i i get that um how does your relationship with jesus helps you transform more into his likeness as your grief ebbs and flows in other words like i guess what set up skin how does your relationship with jesus help you transform more into his likeness as your grief ebbs and flows how does this whole process of grief um can be transforming you know that anna talked about how how does that work do you think yeah i think i think like we we said if there was a just a one answer we we would say it but there isn't is a there is this there's trigger points that you know that that bring grief just like a sucker punch right to you and then there's times when you feel that this is something i can deal with and i yeah i don't know how that helps us transform but i know it does like as i said as long as we don't let that to be something that makes us bitter then it can be something that you know we can allow god to help us in that in that pain yeah i'd in a few weeks time we're going to do a talk call what does the bible say about cancer and that is um that talk has actually been recorded already it's an interview that i do with a beautiful beautiful lady called annie and you're going to get to hear annie's story about cancer and obviously with cancer there's um there was a lot of grieving in some respects to be done not necessarily because of the loss of life but maybe the loss of a way of life do what i mean in in in it it kind of um i'll let her tell a story i'm not gonna just stay tuned subscribe and all that sort of stuff if you want to hear and it's just an incredible story and one of the things about annie uh having known her for a year for years and i'd say the same about anna having known anna for a little while what what you can come away with from their story is actually grief loss tragedy hits everyone the christian and the young christian alike what you can't do is stop that what you can do is respond or respond is maybe the wrong word what you can do is decide how you're going to come out of it or how you're going to work through it or how you're going to be as you go through the grieving process so to come back to saddam's question about becoming more christ-like i find both anna and annie's story so inspiring so inspiring because they go through all this horrendous stuff and they come out through the other end the most beautiful and incredible and humble people wanting and willing to help others full of the love of god demonstrating the love of christ in a way that is just inexplicable i don't know about you don't i the people that have gone through tragedy and come through it with just a real sweet heart for me are the most inspiring people yeah the most inspiring people and i think that's what struck me about anna's talk that she was able to yeah she just showed her her beauty in that in that talk that god had brought out through her through that experience yeah it's amazing yeah it is it is and so again just grief can be transforming and i think whatever you're going through god can work still through you uh and you know it's not over i think that's you know that's the story of hope this thing is not over um it's not the end and things can be different um the actual outcome might not be different but you might be different and i think you know god might help you to bring difference to the people when you um you mentioned about your your mates um and stuff who have suffered grief let's let's talk about this from the other side because we've talked about you know grief a lot from if you're going through when people are going through the grieving process how do what's the best way to help somebody do you think what's it what what do you say to people who are grieving i mean i appreciate that's a super practical question very blokey isn't it it's kind of like but kind of what do we do how do we help people grow do you think i think we the main thing that i know and i know this much is that um we're there for them whether it is you know she wants to bring up some food around whether it's just calling them up checking on them seeing how they're doing see if they want to talk to you shout at you cry with you i think it's been being with people yeah that's what i've that's what i've gathered and learned yeah i'd say i'd say it's a very i miss a very good point just being with people just loving on people and don't feel like you have to have all the answers i think you know i put my arm around a lot of people and just sat there and not said a thing because sometimes you just can't you can't say anything and um and not being afraid to do that just being with people and loving on people and praying for people and actually allowing the questions you know christians could christians can get a little bit uncomfortable when we ask the complex questions like why is god allowed this why did god not intervene why has god not answered this prayer and actually one of the things again that anna touched on was these questions are good and they are okay and you've got to get them out and you might not get all the answers you're looking for but they are good questions and so i think if i'm when i've been with people who are grieving getting those questions out um not trying to answer them with you know smart ass answers is you know and just that's not why they're asking the question they suppose sitting there with people and just loving on people as they're going through it i think is um is important yeah i think um the psalms often show us that that david and some of the songwriters they they weren't scared of just saying god what why have you done this why is this going on um they just shout it out yeah and um yes don't yeah don't hold those questions don't hold them back yeah don't don't be uh here don't be afraid to talk to them about their angry absolutely yeah um yeah i think being pretty like it's not there yes oh yeah i'm very good at that you just talk about the football as though yeah you know or whatever yeah what's on netflix yeah yeah and don't get me wrong there is as we're going to find out actually with annie's story there is a time to change the topic and he talks about this in quite an interesting way um but i think don't be afraid to talk to them uh about it what's clapper here i'm not sure if anyone else here is from another non-english speaking culture but what i would say is that i find it so much easier to grieve with people and support people through grief when i am speaking in arabic rather than english arabic has words and phrases that are full of meaning and love and faith in the midst of grief that i find really difficult to express in english just an interesting observation for me that is a fascinating observation yeah i i mentioned this just before this talk with with lisa say this is dan's wife by the way yes saying being being british the whole stiff upper lip we our grief could be very closed in and we don't want to show it to anyone and and we might see especially in middle eastern countries the screaming and the wailing but people know that there's grief going on don't they make it there's a way to express what's happening i went to the funeral of an amazing jamaican man quite a long well probably about 10 years ago now beautiful beautiful man at the at the funeral as they they put the the coffin in the grave um or the sons his sons had spayed and they helped to physically put the soil in and it was just a way to to express to do something because we're british we don't like to do things and and that i've been able to do something i could see being very helpful to express that grief i hope that came across yeah no it did yeah i was super powerful i'd have been in bits watching that yeah and his daughters were singing it was pretty powerful i bet it was goodness me can you imagine i remember i remember going to i remember doing a few taking a funeral in uruguay right i traveled 36 hours got to uruguay um saw a friend of mine there and we literally dropped our suitcases off at his house and then went and took this funeral um i was tired i was jet lagged and here i am standing blazing heat and asked to take a funeral of someone who i've never met but what i do remember is the way they they expressed their loss and their sadness i had never seen before um and i was reminded you know and you mentioned it earlier then i was reminded of that story why jesus there's a story in the gospel we talked about this when we went through mark's gospel um where jesus goes to a guy's house called jairus and he's like one of the local leaders he's you know well known in the community and his daughter his young daughter has died and jesus goes to the house and this we we get caught up in the story about how jesus goes to the house and and raises this girl from the dead and it's a beautiful story but but sandwiched between that verse you know where jesus raises it from the dead there is a house full of people who are weeping and wailing is what the bible tells us there are mourners there um that are just you know letting all of this out and i think i think claire's point here about actually and your point dan about english being both the english culture and the english language being very limited i wonder if that's why the english find it so hard to grieve because we we find it hard to express it or to understand it or to speak about it maybe we should go and learn some arabic i don't know uh it's a really interesting point chloe so thank you for sharing um yeah really really interesting point well i think let me close this conversation by saying yet again uh we would love to hear from you if if this is uh raw for you if you are grieving you would like someone to pray if you do get in touch with us do send your prayer requests you can put them under in the comments if you're not comfortable with that get in touch with us via the website or via hear from you thank you so much for joining me but uh despite the uh non-coveted lurgy which you have that's been been a pleasure have you managed all right i have i only want coughing fit which is pretty good well done well done uh it's obviously not man flu otherwise you know we'd be taking you to a hospital or something yeah um so i'm grateful it's not that serious uh but appreciate you thanks for you know uh struggling out with it and being with us uh and entering in what can only be described as um a complex and difficult topic so i appreciate your you being with us but next week we are carrying on our series called what does the bible say about we are i think looking at what does the bible say about worship have i got that right john i'm just checking now here i i didn't know the answer to this you know when you just have a brain melt uh that's just me right now my brain has just melted uh yes we are looking at what does the bible say about worship our very own john farrington who has been moderating uh so expertly on facebook and youtube tonight has uh has volunteered to do this talk so john will be talking about worship i am going to be hosting next week dan check this out with mim morecroft cool so it will be mem's first time with us hosting on crowd uh and i'm super excited i've known mim for a number of years and she has a real heart for worship so i'm sorry she's joining us yeah because uh yeah i saw her this morning actually and she's very excited we're having a good old chin wag about next week which would be great um so do join us next week for that what does the bible say about worship the week after that we are looking at what does the bible say about health the week after that we are looking at what does the bible say about racism uh then we're getting into what does bible say about friendship and then on the 22nd on the 20th of february what does the bible say about cancer with annie who i mentioned earlier so all those amazing topics coming up make sure you like and subscribe to crowd church so you know what's coming out and if you head over to the website put your email address in we'll even send you an email when things get released either way just get connected uh it's lovely to be with you as we said at the start crowd is an online church and if you are looking for a church if you want a place to sort of find uh to call home why not join crowd we'd love to have you be great for you uh to join us great to meet you uh matt has put here mim is a legend yes she is matt uh she is a legend and john is put in the comments so you met that's that's that's all the loving in right there uh so yes thank you so much for joining us have a great week we are going to close the live stream by playing another worship song another worship track and so when this track finishes uh the livestream will end automatically again join him with a worship or just read the words let the minister to you um pray and if you've never prayed before try it see how you get on um and see what god does it's been an absolute treat and privilege to be with you this week god bless you and for those of you thank you very much pray you know your holy spirit yeah thanks dan bless you guys your presence is without it there's no meaning i will exalt you lifted high i will i will exalt and there will be no god i will exalt you lord i will exalt you lord lifted