The other day, I visited with a friend on the phone for an hour while I folded laundry and she fed lunch to her kiddos. There was a lot of background noise. There were pauses to shush a child or to keep them from pulling a chair down on themselves. As I folded napkins and rolled up socks on that particular Tuesday, we talked about how life can sometimes feel as full as the trees this time of year. There are so many things to do, it’s sometimes a harrowing thing to just start somewhere, anywhere. Life feels like a closet you’ve stuffed everything into, and you’re afraid to inch the door open just a crack to grab one thing. You fear it’ll all crash on top of you.
I reminded my friend of the well-worn words by Elisabeth Elliot—though I mostly said them to remind myself that sometimes, you just have to do the next thing.
I spent a lot of time reading Elisabeth Elliot after my miscarriage. It was so tempting in those barren days to want to stubbornly stay put in my grief, to indulge in it like a child who cries and cries and won’t stop crying for attention. Elisabeth’s voice was like a grandmother’s gentle rebuke, reminding me that Christ suffered first and most, that I was not the only person to ever grieve death, and that, while I may never move on, I could certainly move forward in God’s strength.
Over the last year, I’ve learned that grief has at least two parts to it:
One: it must be faced head-on, spoken out loud, and wept over often. It is Christlike to grieve the way sin has thrown its black shadow over our world, and how death mocks all that is right and true. In just two words we find a world of comfort: Jesus wept (Jn. 11:35).
Two: at some point, you have to get up and do the laundry.
In those long weeks after my miscarriage, I came across this particular story Elisabeth told about a woman who wrote to her:
I once received a wonderful letter from a woman, an older woman, who told me back when she was a little girl in the Depression that her father had died. None of his friends came to the funeral. She had to wear a borrowed dress. The house was mortgaged. Her mother was left a widow with seven children. And the lawyer who was supposed to be handling her financial affairs stole the inheritance. And the lady said this, when we went back to the house after the funeral, my mother picked up the broom and began to sweep the kitchen. And she said I look back on that now and I realize that it was the soft swish, swish of that broom that began the healing process… She prayed and she did the next thing. She picked up the broom.
There is something very biblical—worshipful, even—about this. When Hannah had cried all the tears she could cry in her great longing for a baby, what did she do?
“Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord; then they went back to their house at Ramah” (1 Sam. 1:18-19).
She ate a meal, lifted her countenance, and went to the house of God to worship. Then, she went home, where there was probably food to prepare and work to be done. It’s important to note that her prayers hadn’t yet been answered. She was still childless and unsure what Eli’s words meant for her future. On that day at the temple, Hannah had no way of knowing that she would someday be the mother of six children (1 Sam. 2:21). Yet she did the next thing in front of her, took care of her body, and—most importantly—she nourished her soul on the glory of God among His people.
You might say she picked up the broom.
When you are laden with grief, showing up to church is an act of worship. Sometimes, just doing the laundry or sweeping the floor is the best kind of obedience you can offer, and, as it turns out, “there is no consolation like obedience.”* I’ve shown up to church on the Lord’s Day with a brittle heart, afraid I would fall apart in the pew, only to come away consoled by God’s Word and work among His people (Ps. 28:6). It was like washing my face in a cool stream.
Godly grief does not ignore the weight that has settled onto your shoulders, the empty room in the house, the emptiness of your womb. Rather, a godly grief trusts God will give you what the old hymn promises: strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
The Lord is gracious to offer many means of comforting us: through His Word, His people, and sometimes, through the soft swish, swish of a broom picked up in obedience to Him.
Elisabeth Elliot, Suffering is Never for Nothing. (B&H Publishing Group: 2019. Brentwood, TN), 88
Ibid, 87
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