How do I find comfort and peace when I have lost a loved one?

You will admit that it must be blessed for the Lord to have His redeemed people at home, and that it must be blessed for them to be there with Him, for as in the new earth there will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying nor any more pain, and all tears will be wiped from all eyes, so must it be now in the presence of the Lord. You have no doubt as to all this, but what of yourself? You have sorrow and tears enough, you have been left lonely and desolate; and what a desolator death is! You hear the words of your friends, and they are sympathetic words, and are spoken for your consolation, but how cold the warmest of them seem to be. You feel that they do not understand what this means to you. There is a certain comfort in their words but they do not go far enough. There is a depth within you that they cannot reach, and your sorrow lies in that unreachable depth; there is a secret chamber within your heart that the most intimate of your friends cannot enter, and it is in that very chamber that this sorrow of yours has taken up its abode. Can there be any blessedness for you? Yes, for the Lord Himself has said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." And He will make good His own word, even to you. Your sorrow has made more room for Him in your life than ever there has been before; it has made you feel your need of Him as you never felt it before. He has never been far away from you. He is at your side now. He is waiting for you to admit Him into that secret chamber where your grief holds its sway. He would enter there that He might fill it with His own peace, the peace of His presence. He is the great Comforter, and He is this because He fully understands. Nobody else does. Your heart knows its own bitterness, and there are times when your best friends seem complete strangers to you, so little do they understand you and enter into your feelings, but it is not so with Him. He knows you through and through, He understands, and because He understands and knows all you are passing through, He can sympathize.

Think of broken-hearted Mary. She brought her sorrow to the feet of the Lord as He waited for her outside the town of Bethany. "If Thou hadst been here," she cried, "my brother had not died." Then she looked up into His face through her tears, and lo, JESUS WEPT. Was not she at that moment most blessedly comforted? She had known that He loved her before, but she had never known that He loved her like that. His tears were more eloquent than words, and she found that His sympathy was greater than her sorrow. He did not speak to her, but He kept close by her side, and you may be sure that it was true of her, then and there, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."

The words of your friends reach your ears, and perhaps leave you more hopeless and bewildered than before. His words will reach your soul and give you divine support for human props, and a comfort and peace that death cannot destroy, for His words reveal Himself, and He is more than all you need. Turn yourself about to Him; lift your tear-filled eyes to His; hide not your broken heart from His touch; tell Him the cause of your grief.

Our loved ones pass out of our sight, but He remains. Blessed indeed for all saints at all times to realize that He remains, but never more precious than when in the deep sorrow of bereavement — amid the break-up of earthly homes, and the wreck of earthly hopes — we can look up into His face and say, "Thou remainest." And as He looks down into our stricken hearts, with infinite compassion, He answers back, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."

We may feel how dependent we have been on a human presence and an earthly voice — but God, even our God, shall bless us and give us to feel that the "everlasting arms" are around us, and that "in His presence there is fulness of joy." Waves of sorrow and a sense of loss may beat upon our hearts in almost overwhelming power, but He still treads the waters of affliction, and beneath His feet the storm is stayed, and furious winds of trouble and raging waves of fear all sink to rest when He says "Peace, be still." He comes in the watches of the night, and we hear Him say "It is I, be not afraid." We sorrow, but "not as others that have no hope," for the foundation of our hope is in Him Who has said, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." The future we can and must leave with Him.

And why has that incident been given to us in the Gospel that unfolds for us the glory of the Son of God? For your sake. What He was for Mary, He is for you. You may realize that He who is the mighty God feels for you, that He enters into your grief, that He knows the aching in your stricken heart, and the silence in your bereaved home, and not only the silence of it but the shadow that has crept into every room of it, and that knowing all He desires to fill up your heart with His own comfort. He will not remove the sorrow as He did in Mary's case, but He will give you something greater than it — His own friendship and sympathy. He offers you the full knowledge of a love that death itself cannot spoil — His own love. He can make that love so real to you that you will discover that you can do without everybody and everything but Himself. Yes, neither father, mother, sister, brother, friend, husband, wife, houses, lands, are indispensable to us, they have their place in our natural lives, and their place is a God-given blessed place while it lasts, but He is our life and will be our life for ever; He is our joy unspeakable and full of glory: Without them we may live, but without Him we cannot.

If bereavement enters the home, the God of all comfort is near with everlasting consolation. If difficulties beset our path, want stares us in the face, we know not which way to turn, then our resource is in God, that God of whom Paul speaks, “who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver; in whom we trust that He will yet deliver.” Hitherto God had cared for him, Paul found Him all-sufficient, a very present help in time of trouble; “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” was his confidence for the future. Paul’s God is ours. He is the unchanging One, His mercies are inexhaustible: “My God shall supply all your need.”

But I will not trespass on you, dear brother, with many words at this moment. Only look to Jesus, and believe in and count on the love of God towards yourself - towards her there is no difficulty, she is where all is clear - for your dear little ones and believe that He is sufficient, and wait upon Him who knows our sorrows and difficulties and trials. Be assured of my unfeigned sympathy, for indeed I feel that your loss has been very great, but I am sure my God is able to supply all your need according to His riches in glory. Peace be with you: be much with Jesus, and the God of peace shall keep your heart.

And Jesus is still the same — "The same yesterday, today, and for ever." In our sorrows, and when our loved ones are taken from us, we still learn that our only real and lasting comfort is found in bowing at His feet, and pouring out our sorrow in the presence of the One who once wept with these broken-hearted women.

I have always felt that the first break in the family is more than all others … but Christ has come in where death was and given a life beyond it all. He calls us in gracious and tender love to live in that. He knows how to comfort — knows what death is far better than we do, because He is the resurrection and the life — has wept over it and suffered it. He will comfort you … with a comfort which, if it feels for death, death cannot touch.

I did not intend, dear sister, to say so much to you, being on a journey in a village in Canada, but I would not and could not receive the news of the departure of your husband without expressing how I participate in your mourning and loss. For him it is joy and peace, for you and your children it is separation from that which is most dear, but to find solitude with God. But God is sufficient for everything, and when sin brought in death, trial and mourning, the Conqueror of death and of the enemy afterwards entered, become man to participate in all and to give us a hope, which has made a gain of death itself - a perfectly certain hope, a love from which nothing can separate us.