Everyone goes through the grieving process in a very different way, but we can all find God’s presence in the midst of our pain and suffering.
Pastor Angelia Waite has experienced this firsthand after the loss of her 3-year-old son, Ramsey. She shares about her initial struggle with the reality that this tragic event had taken place.
“The first part of that journey for me was denial. I had convinced myself that something horrible had happened to me, personally. I was in a coma; I played that through my mind and had convinced myself that surely God would not ask me to walk this out; this can’t be true.”
“I did that for probably seven days. I even went to the funeral thinking I’m going to wake up in a few days; this is not possible.”
Angelia describes how she and her husband’s grieving process differed, yet they were still able to find God’s presence and grace in the midst of their heartache and despair.
“I went through denial while my husband went through anger, and those are healthy processes, but the beauty of that is God’s grace. He and I were never grieving at the same stage at the same time – that’s His grace. If we had both been in the same stage, we could not have cared for our other children. We were walking them through it and we were all in different places.”
God cares about every detail of our lives and knows exactly what we are going through. Not only does He understand, but He walks alongside of us in the deepest valleys of our lives.
There will be times when God will use us to share this truth to someone who is going through the grieving process. When trying to support a person who has lost a loved one, Angelia says that it’s important to speak the direct truth, instead of sugar-coating it. She elaborates,
“As women, we are nurturers; this is who we are. I want to put a Band-Aid on whatever your crisis is right now and say, ‘I need you not to cry. I want to help you, I want you to smile and I don’t want your mascara to run.’
“What we do is I give you something soft; I give you something fluffy and sweet. What I really needed was truth. I needed someone to remind me, to put their hands on my cheeks and say, ‘He’s right here.’
As the body of Christ, we can bring comfort to our loved ones by reminding them that God’s presence is always with them, especially in the deepest, darkest valleys of life.
Angelia Waite is a unique theologian. Holding a Master of Divinity from the King’s University in Van Nuys, CA. She a wife, mother, international speaker, author, role model, mentor, Bible teacher, and author of
A story of hope and healing
