Article March 31, 1986 Issue

Healing grief: comfort in the Science of indestructible Life

STEVEN L. FAIR

When a friend, family member, or someone we admire dies, the sense of loss and sorrow can seem almost unbearable. The human heart cries out in anguish, because the parting seems so permanent, so irreversible. With every fiber of our being we want our loved one back. Death, however, seems to be the one event about which we can do little except mourn our loss.

But is this so? Are we wholly powerless and without comfort before what the Bible terms "the last enemy"? Do we have to plunge to the very depths of the black hole of despair and grief? Or does God, divine Love, provide a path of solace and hope through "the valley of the shadow of death"?

This writer is convinced He does, but this conviction has been hard won. The recent loss of two of my dearest friends brought me face to face with the question of death and challenged to the depths my understanding—as opposed to my theoretical knowledge—of God. Because human life is rife with calamities, such as the recent United States space shuttle tragedy, I wanted to share something of what I have learned, in the hope that it will comfort and strengthen others as it has me.

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