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How Can I Return to Normal Life After Tragedy? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Well, how do we return to normal life after a life altering loss.
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  Today's question is from a broken woman named Andrea. Dear Pastor John. She
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  writes, my husband went home to be with the Lord two months ago after
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  a four month battle with pancreated cancer. We were both divorcees who met in
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  October of twenty nineteen. God restored our lives and we married in October of
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  twenty twenty. I'm very thankful to have been married to my late husband.
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  The Lord had restored our lives in relationship. There was so much joy to
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  live with someone who loves you so much. My late husband had a son,
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  now twenty years old. We expected to spend the rest of our lives
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  as a family unit, but our blissful days together were short and our worlds
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  came crashing down. We held on to the word of God, expecting a
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  miracle healing right to the end. He was not healed and didn't recover.
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  In fact, he suffered a lot of pain in the end. Many of
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  our friends supported and prayed for us. But now after my husband's passing,
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  I can't find any purpose in life. Is this normal to feel this way?
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  Friends ask me how I am If I'm returning to work. I can
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  only say I'm okay, but deep in my heart, I am not okay.
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  How do I continue to live my life? My heart feels very heavy.
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  I tried to listen to sermons and read the Bible, but nothing seems
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  to be getting into my heart. Thank you and God bless. Andrea asks
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  is it normal to feel this way, namely not being able to find purpose
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  in life after her husband passed away. Yeah, there are so many factors
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  that affect how we function after a major loss that it's hard to say what
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  is normal because everybody's situation is so different. Age differences, employment differences,
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  health differences, family differences, wider relationship, church, location, gifting,
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  maturity, faith, and on and on, so many differences. But I
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  think I can say with some degree of certainty that the more your life is
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  embedded in or intertwined with what or whom you've lost, whether it's a spouse
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  or job, or health or home or child, then the more normal it
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  is to feel disoriented and aimless. So that's true. I think the answer
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  will be closer to yes, it's normal than no, it's not normal.
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  But Andrew's real question, it seems to me, is not so much.
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  Am I normal? But what do I do? How do I continue to
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  live my life? She says, So, here are some thoughts from scripture.
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  Because God is the one we have to turn to ultimately, isn't it
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  number one? The first thing I would say is wait for the Lord.
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  Don't assume that the way you feel today is the way it will always be.
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  In time, the Lord will change things. He will, which means
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  that this is a God appointed season of waiting. I've learned this over years
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  and years from watching my own heart and counseling lots of people. I've learned
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  that Americans, or maybe you could say modern people in general, want quick
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  solutions to our problems. We don't like waiting. But God is seldom in
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  a hurry. It's amazing. God is simply seldom in a hurry. It's
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  almost as if He prefers the slow pace of healing and strengthening. Early in
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  my ministry, in fact, six weeks after starting my pastorate in the summer
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  of nineteen eighty, I preached a sermon about waiting from Psalm forty. It's
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  desiring God. I checked it out yesterday. It's called in the Pits with
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  a King Because David in Psalm forty says, I waited patiently for the Lord,
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  And that's the key sentence. He doesn't say how long he waited,
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  and I'm glad he didn't say it was a week, or a month or
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  a year. I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and
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  heard my cry. Yes, eventually he did. He drew me up from
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  the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet
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  on a rock, and made my steps secure. He put a new song
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  in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see
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  in fear and put their trust in the Lord. Those are the first verses
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  of Psalm forty. So David is looking back on a season of misery.
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  He called it pit myrie bog. And in this situation his strategy was I
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  waited and I cried to the Lord, and I'm glad he didn't say how
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  long, a week, a month, a year. That's the calling on
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  all Christians, in various degrees, in various times this life. Nobody escapes
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  it. We all will find ourselves in seasons where we have no choice but
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  to wait for the Lord, unless we're going to just rebel and throw in
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  the towel, which would be very foolish. David even gives us an explanation
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  of what God was doing in this appointed season of waiting. He says that
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  God eventually comes. He puts our feet on solid ground. He puts us
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  song in our mouth. Many see and fear and put their trust in the
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  Lord. In other words, this is evangelism. This is God's strategy to
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  draw people to trust in Him by watching us pass through these pits that we
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  have to wait in. The effect of David's waiting and eventual deliverance was in
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  effect for the good of other people's faith. Trust the Lord because David's patient
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  waiting move them to trust the Lord. One of my favorite hymns puts it
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  like this, He knows the time for joy and truly will send it when
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  he sees it meet when he has tried and purged thee dooly and found thee
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  free from all deceit. So, Andrea, God has his purposes for your
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  season of loss and sorrow and even aimlessness. Trust him in it. Wait
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  patiently for the Lord. He will come. Psalm twenty three says he will
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  restore your soul right now. Your soul feels numb, maybe even dead,
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  unresponsive. But that's why you must wait. God promises I will restore,
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  and the word is caused to return your soul. It's as if the soul
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  is languishing, its numb, it's dead. I will restore your soul.
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  Second, I would say, think much about the preciousness of Christ alongside of
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  the preciousness of your husband. When your memory calls up sweet and wonderful experiences
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  with your husband, let the power of those affections intensify your love for Christ.
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  Because if Esians five says that your marriage had that aim in the first
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  place. Marriage is meant to be a portrayal, a drama of Christ's love
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  for the Church and the church's commitment to Christ. It was meant to help
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  us feed the wonder and pleasure of what a relationship with Christ is like.
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  So as your memory brings to your mind and to your heart how much you
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  and your husband loved each other and how committed you were to each other,
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  translate those affections where you could use the musical analogy of transpose those affections into
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  another key, so that the husband love is translated into transposed into the music
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  of Christ. Love say something like this to your husband. I miss you
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  so much. You were very, very precious to me. There is a
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  huge hole in my life where you were so Jesus, I know you are
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  even more precious than that. If I did not have you, Jesus,
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  I would miss my very life. There would be a great unfillable hole in
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  my soul. But I do have you, Jesus, and you are my
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  true husband. I pray that you would help me feel for you and more
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  the intensity of what I feel for the man I have lost. Something like
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  that. I think the reason God gives us so much pleasure in our spouse
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  is to give us a taste of the pleasure that there is in belonging to
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  Jesus. And so it follows that the pain we feel with the loss of
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  our spouse can be another intensification of what it means to belong to Christ.
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  And then third, I would say pray Psalm one thirty nine, Verses twenty
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  three and twenty four, Search me, O God and know my heart,
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  try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any grievous way in
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  me, and lead me in the way everlasting. And the reason I say
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  this is because we should always honestly reckon with the possibility that our love for
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  our spouse could be a disordered love, meaning it might be encroaching on our
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  love for Jesus. Jesus said, whoever loves family members more than me is
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  not worthy of me. So we should regularly go before the Lord and ask
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  him to reveal our hearts. Lord, is there anything Is there any one
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  who is compete with you for my supreme affections? Because if that happens,
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  it will almost certainly make the loss of that person more disabling than it ought
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  to be. And then, finally, number four, while you're waiting for
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  the Lord to restore your joy and purposefulness, ask him to reveal what he
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  aims to teach you in this season that you could learn from him and from
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  the Christian life in no other way. And the reason I say that is
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  because of Psalm one nineteen, verses sixty seven and seventy one. They're amazing.
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  Before I was afflicted, I went astray. But now I keep your
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  word or verse seventy one is good for me that I was afflicted, that
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  I might learn your statutes. In other words, don't waste your sorrow,
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  Andrea, don't waste the season of loss. God has gifts for you and
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  through you for others. Ask him what they are, and then take hold
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  of them, perhaps write them in a journal, and then let him use
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  you in the lives of others. He will set your feet on a rock.
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  He will put a new song in your mouth. Many will see and
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  fear and put their trust in the Lord. Thank you, Pastor John,
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  and thank you for the very honest question, Andrea, and for bringing us
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  into your life like this. And if you want to ask Pastor John a
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  question of your own, type it out, email it to us at ask
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  Pastor John at Desiring Good dot org. That's our email address, ask Pastor
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  John at Desiring God Well. A lot of youth ministries focus on topical messages
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  about life application. That's their main focus. But one youth pastor has been
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  wondering if a better way forward is to preach expositional messages through whole books of
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  the Bible. Next time, Pastor John will share three key considerations for how
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  to use youth meetings to build students into a deeper understanding of their Bibles and
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  to set them up for a deeper encounter with God. I'm your host,
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  Tony Urinky, we'll see you on Monday.