After the pain and guilt and anger, then there is an awakening — a morning when you remember the good memories that bless and finally no longer burn. There's a morning when we can let go of all our bad feelings about death and know that life goes on. Then the good memories can flood back into our lives again, stronger and stronger, giving us strength to go on. We can be close to that person again because we let go of the bad grief that was blocking out all the goodness we cherished of that person's life.

This is so important, but we often have a hard time doing it. I had a friend once who lost her husband quite suddenly of a heart attack in the night. She was young and had a young family and grieved greatly. But she came to the point when she wanted to remember and cherish the good things about her husband's life. She had all their friends over and wanted to talk about her husband, and she wanted them to share that with her. She would go up to one of his colleagues and say, for instance: "Wes really respected you. He enjoyed working with you so much." or "Wes always said you were the finest secretary he ever had." or whatever suited the person. I was with her that evening, and it was so easy to see that she longed for just a word from them about something good about her husband that they could share back with her. But no one there could handle talking about someone who was dead. Not one of them. I know they really cared about him, because I'd seen them, a bunch of builders and contractors all weeping at the funeral. But they avoided talking about him at all cost. They would say, "Oh, yes, and what lovely violets you have here . . ." They just couldn't seem to help her in coming into her good grief. They wanted to avoid all grief whatsoever.

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Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and do you think anyone of us will be any less raised? "If we don't know where our loved ones are," Jesus says to us: "How can you not know, when I have told you? I have prepared a place for you, and if it were not so, I would have told you that too, He said."

For all our "if onlys" the Lord says: "I knew that too, and I can make all things work together for good, if you can only let go of that and leave it in my hands."

We must weep; it's very important to express our grief. But then we can allow ourselves to be comforted. After the weeping at my grandfather's funeral, my grandmother lifted up her hand as they were carrying out the casket and stood up and said in a loud voice: "There goes Harvey! Goodbye Harvey!" I'll never forget it. Everyone was a bit shocked, that she could face the parting so openly. But to me she leaned down, with a twinkle behind the tears in her eyes and whispered: "He's not really gone."

What we will not part with, we have kept. And the Lord has promised that will never be taken from us.

Let me read you a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, that describes the grief process very well:

Home they brought her warrior dead,

She nor swooned nor uttered cry.

All her maidens, watching said:

'She must weep or she will die.'

Then they praised him, soft and low,

Called him worthy to be loved,

Truest friend and noblest foe;

Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,

Lightly to the warrior stepped,

Took the face-cloth from the face;

Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,

Set his child upon her knee —

Like summer tempest came her tears —

'Sweet my child, I live for thee.'

We only grieve where we have loved. And it is only by rediscovering that love can go on as that woman did with her child. Seeing where we are called to love now, that enables us to live through grief. And one of the very good things about grief is that it teaches us a little better how to treasure and cherish what we love in the short time we're given.

The hollow in your heart where pain dug so deeply, is the same place where you now have room to receive and truly cherish that much more joy. Those who have deeply grieved know the true depths and heights to which love can go. Blessed are those who mourn, because they shall be comforted and their joy shall be full.

Kathleen Peterson is pastor of Palos Heights United Methodist Church in Palos Heights, IL.