As he awaited his death as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, the famed theologian, pastor and Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a letter about losing people we love. He wrote, in part:
There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve—even in pain—the authentic relationship. Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.
Gratitude helps us deal with loss. Jesus faced loss and showed us one other way to deal with the grief that accompanies the loss of people we love: compassion. “Now when Jesus heard this [John’s death], he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:12-14, ESV).
John the Baptist was Jesus’s cousin. John was murdered because of a crazed and convicted adulterer. When Jesus heard the news, he withdrew out of grief and sorrow. He went to a lonely place by himself. The big problem for Jesus was that though he wanted to be alone to grieve and process his loss, the multitudes wanted his healing. When they realized where he had gone, they followed him. Jesus saw them and felt compassion for them.
The way out of the grief funk is not through a season of loneliness but through ministering to others. When you start to tend to others’ needs, God heals you and takes care of you. It’s dangerous to be left alone with your thoughts when you suffer great loss. It is in giving that you receive.
After pastoring an inner-city congregation in Detroit for thirty years, Pastor Tim served at Brooklyn Tabernacle in NYC for five years and pastored in Lafayette, Louisiana, for five years. He became Senior Pastor of Times Square Church in May of 2020.