The Devastation of Grief

[Anthony Pritchard]

​

On Sun, Aug 21, 2022

Written to a dear Brother in Christ who, twenty‑one years before Linda’s passing, lost his eighteen‑year‑old daughter in a tragic traffic accident. I share it now in the hope that it may comfort others who walk through the valley of grief.

Dear Brother,

Greetings in the holy name of our Lord and our God Jesus Christ (John 20:27).

Though Linda’s death continues to reverberate the agony of grief through my life, I know you understand these depths, for you have suffered in like manner. Yet even under a weight that, without my Lord, would be too heavy to bear, I have never lost my faith in the Only Begotten Son of God. I hold fast to the truth that “our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17), and that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

As I survey the wasted and destroyed landscape of my present life, above it all I still see Him, the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). Through Him I have my eternal hope, my only hope. By the witness of the Spirit of God with my spirit (Romans 8:16), I know that I have been born into the family of God, redeemed, bought with a price, and translated into the Kingdom of His dear Son. Many other passages speak of this same Way, each giving a deeper and richer understanding of the matchless richness of our common salvation (Jude 3). Yet I do not believe that in this flesh we can begin to comprehend the magnificent work of salvation. Only when we see Him “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12), when faith becomes sight, will we know. And we will be amazed as we fall on our faces before Him.

I have been devastated, but through the unspeakable grace of God, not destroyed. In this great pain, the Word of God taught me that life is a gift, that valleys of deep despair are real, and that only in this life do we have the high honor and privilege of serving Him in the face of adversity. Only here, in the midst of pain and agony, can we prove our love for Him in a way that will never again be possible in eternity. This opportunity is a gift, and it is only for this life. The gifts of God to us are indeed manifold, magnificent, and totally undeserved.

Our marriage, Linda and I, began on the foundation of Jesus Christ. As we drew nearer to God, we drew nearer to each other. It ended still on that foundation. A dear friend painted a picture of that truth as a wedding present, and it remains much treasured to this day.

Many who have lost a beloved spouse have said to me, “I know what you are going through.” I love them for caring enough to try to ease my pain, but such a thing is not possible. They cannot know my grief, even as I cannot fully know theirs.

The Christ‑honoring marriage that Linda and I built upon His foundation was unique to us alone. As snowflakes are many yet no two are the same, each a small and beautiful wonder, so too was the love between Linda and me. One marriage among countless others, yet ours was our own. As fingerprints are exclusive to each person, the unique fingerprints of our love remain imprinted upon our souls, bearing a precious message in a language only we two, and God, can understand. Our marriage is now past, but our love lives on.

Though I had never known such pain was possible, it is not about me. It is not about my sufferings. It is not about Tony at all. It is about Him and His inestimable love for us.

“But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you” (1 Peter 5:10).

To you and your sweet wife, I dearly love you both.

“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

~Tony

© A.K. Pritchard 2022 –

Linda Faye Pritchard
October 31, 1953 - April 15, 2021
Child of God
Beloved Wife and Mother​

 

[atpollard]

I am sorry for your loss and your pain.

I have to say that you people are more “spiritual” than I am. I am the oldest of three children and buried two younger brothers. One by suicide to stop his silent pain and the second was murdered by God. [When a series of events cause a minister to go into hypoglycemic shock while driving and u-turn over a median, cross several driveways avoiding the ditch and kill a pedestrian on a sidewalk the buck must stop with Divine Providence.]

At the funeral, someone asked me if I wanted revenge. I thought about it for a moment and answered honestly: “If it would bring Richard back, I would crush the life out of the man with my bare hands. But I don’t want him dead, I want Richard alive. So there is nothing that I want or need from the driver.”

My response was less “Scriptural” and more raw honesty. Sometimes we hurt and sometimes life really sucks. Guess what, it still sucks without God … only then we don’t even have “HOPE”.

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

I am sorry for your loss and your pain.

I have to say that you people are more “spiritual” than I am. I am the oldest of three children and buried two younger brothers. One by suicide to stop his silent pain and the second was murdered by God. [When a series of events cause a minister to go into hypoglycemic shock while driving and u-turn over a median, cross several driveways avoiding the ditch and kill a pedestrian on a sidewalk the buck must stop with Divine Providence.]

At the funeral, someone asked me if I wanted revenge. I thought about it for a moment and answered honestly: “If it would bring Richard back, I would crush the life out of the man with my bare hands. But I don’t want him dead, I want Richard alive. So there is nothing that I want or need from the driver.”

My response was less “Scriptural” and more raw honesty. Sometimes we hurt and sometimes life really sucks. Guess what, it still sucks without God … only then we don’t even have “HOPE”.

Brother, thank you for speaking honestly. Losing one brother is a wound. Losing two is a weight few men could carry without breaking. I cannot pretend to know the depth of what you have lived through, and I will not offer easy answers to something that has torn your life apart.

I do believe, though, that grief can take us in very different directions. Some of us collapse into God because we have nowhere else to go. Others collapse away from Him because the pain feels like betrayal. Both reactions come from the same place: a heart that loved deeply and was wounded deeply.

You said something that struck me: that life still “sucks” without God, only then we don’t even have hope. That is the part I hold onto. Not because it minimizes your loss, but because it tells me you still know where the only hope is found, even if you cannot feel it right now.

I don’t judge your anger. I don’t question your honesty. I only want you to know that the God who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows does not turn away from a broken heart, even when that heart is angry at Him. He is nearer to the crushed in spirit than we ever realize.

I am praying for you, Brother. Not that the pain disappears, but that the God who walks with us in the valley will meet you there in His own time and His own way.

 

[Ascetic X]

I have to say that you people are more “spiritual” than I am. I am the oldest of three children and buried two younger brothers. One by suicide to stop his silent pain and the second was murdered by God. [When a series of events cause a minister to go into hypoglycemic shock while driving and u-turn over a median, cross several driveways avoiding the ditch and kill a pedestrian on a sidewalk the buck must stop with Divine Providence.]

At the funeral, someone asked me if I wanted revenge. I thought about it for a moment and answered honestly: “If it would bring Richard back, I would crush the life out of the man with my bare hands. But I don’t want him dead, I want Richard alive. So there is nothing that I want or need from the driver.”

My response was less “Scriptural” and more raw honesty. Sometimes we hurt and sometimes life really sucks. Guess what, it still sucks without God … only then we don’t even have “HOPE”.

I am sorry for your emotional pain. The death of a loved one, and in your case, two younger brothers, is devastatingly horrible, bizarre and catastrophic. The universe you experience now has a huge gaping void, a wretched hole that will never be filled in this life. Nothing can replace your brothers.

But something you said makes me even sadder. I hope someday, you cease blaming God and stop calling Him a murderer.

Why God allows certain things to happen is a miserable mystery. We must respond with a reverential silence.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

I am sorry for your emotional pain. The death of a loved one, and in your case, two younger brothers, is devastatingly horrible, bizarre and catastrophic. The universe you experience now has a huge gaping void, a wretched hole that will never be filled in this life. Nothing can replace your brothers.

But something you said makes me even sadder. I hope someday, you cease blaming God and stop calling Him a murderer.

Why God allows certain things to happen is a miserable mystery. We must respond with a reverential silence.

Reverential silence!?! Please tell me what that means. When tragedy strikes, do people just swallow hard then park it somewhere in the dark recesses of the mind? Then there is the purpose of life that must be considered… is there one?

A good friend of my wife’s was crossing a street recently delivering food to shut-in’s, was struck & killed. The husband was so grief stricken he went home and killed himself. If we do indeed have a personal God (which I believe) then where was He? Couldn’t He have averted this…because yes he could have.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Reverential silence!?! Please tell me what that means. When tragedy strikes, do people just swallow hard then park it somewhere in the dark recesses of the mind? Then there is the purpose of life that must be considered… is there one?

A good friend of my wife’s was crossing a street recently delivering food to shut-in’s, was struck & killed. The husband was so grief stricken he went home and killed himself. If we do indeed have a personal God (which I believe) then where was He? Couldn’t He have averted this…because yes he could have.

So when I read Revolution's, it tells me the world is getting worse and is going to be a place of pain, torture & sin, so what can I expect?? I personally use my grief and loneliness to perfect myself in order to counter this sin filled world…and I pray “come Jesus come, let today be the day”

Then I will see my late wife, my child, my Cerebral Palsy sister, mom & dad

 

[Deacon]

My family is mired in grief as well, though in a different situation.

This short book has been helpful:

Grieving With Hope: Finding Comfort as You Journey Through Loss
by Samuel J. Hodges IV and Kathy Leonard
BakerBooks, 2011. 160 p.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

It is well with my soul!

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

PAMELA SUSAN DAVIS

OCTOBER 05,1957 to NOVEMBER 12, 2025

LOVING WIFE & MOTHER & GRANDMOTHER

RIP MY LOVE

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

My family is mired in grief as well, though in a different situation.

This short book has been helpful:

Grieving With Hope: Finding Comfort as You Journey Through Loss
by Samuel J. Hodges IV and Kathy Leonard
BakerBooks, 2011. 160 p.

I’m well aware my brother… I pray for you and your family.

 

[atpollard]

I have to say that you people are more “spiritual” than I am. I am the oldest of three children and buried two younger brothers. One by suicide to stop his silent pain and the second was murdered by God.

I was sharing a story of events that are coming up on 10 years in the past (next month). Death and suffering are a part of life. So are hope and miracles. I thought I would share a lesson gained from 10 years of perspective looking back at hard times. I don’t know if it will make sense to anyone else, but it helped me.

The Gift of Job
When bad things happen, we have a tendency to feel like either WE have done something wrong or GOD has turned his back on us. (Of course you would never feel that way, those sort of feelings only happen to me. ) It was during one of those moments that I came across an idea that I called “the Gift of Job”.

Every normal day, we wake up and if we are honest with ourselves … God is good. I mean, any “thanks” or “praise” we might offer is really nothing more than offering back to God a small portion of the gratitude that is due Him. It is the essence of the charge that Satan made in the story of Job. (“Of course Job praises you, you bless him and protect him, so Job has nothing but reasons to praise and trust you.”). The vast majority of every moment of the life of every person is exactly like that. People may offer praise or they may take God for granted, but on balance, people have no honest reason to offer God anything but “praise” as payment for what God has done.

Then there is the story of Job. Those moments when EVERYTHING is taken away and even the best advice given is “curse God and die” (remember eventually even Job cursed the day he was born). It is at the moment when every LOGICAL bone in your body can see nothing that seems like you should be “thankful” for it or like there is any reason to “worship” God who has turned his back on you that you have been given a rare and precious gift …

You have an opportunity to give something to God that is not MERELY “His due”. You have a choice and opportunity to offer “praise” when there is no circumstance that suggests any praise is due. You have a choice and opportunity to offer “worship” when it feels like God has abandonded you and you have no REASON to worship. How many opportunities come along in life for the creature to offer to the CREATOR a gift that is not demonstrably earned and deserved? How often will we have an opportunity to give GOD trust IN SPITE of everything we see and feel?

Job did and he is remembered forever for it.
Perhaps our greatest moments of hardship are a rare and precious GIFT from God … an opportunity to GIVE TO God.

[Just some thoughts to keep or ignore as you think best.]

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

Perhaps our greatest moments of hardship are a rare and precious GIFT from God … an opportunity to GIVE TO God.

They are, and not only that, they are the hardest moments of all. It is difficult to hold in our hands and reconcile in our hearts the immense love of God with the crushing loss you we are suffering. Yet even in that place, it becomes an opportunity to show love back to our God. And when we do, He does not leave us to carry the grief alone. He lifts us, strengthens us, and bears the weight with us.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

I was sharing a story of events that are coming up on 10 years in the past (next month). Death and suffering are a part of life. So are hope and miracles. I thought I would share a lesson gained from 10 years of perspective looking back at hard times. I don’t know if it will make sense to anyone else, but it helped me.

The Gift of Job
When bad things happen, we have a tendency to feel like either WE have done something wrong or GOD has turned his back on us. (Of course you would never feel that way, those sort of feelings only happen to me. ) It was during one of those moments that I came across an idea that I called “the Gift of Job”.

Every normal day, we wake up and if we are honest with ourselves … God is good. I mean, any “thanks” or “praise” we might offer is really nothing more than offering back to God a small portion of the gratitude that is due Him. It is the essence of the charge that Satan made in the story of Job. (“Of course Job praises you, you bless him and protect him, so Job has nothing but reasons to praise and trust you.”). The vast majority of every moment of the life of every person is exactly like that. People may offer praise or they may take God for granted, but on balance, people have no honest reason to offer God anything but “praise” as payment for what God has done.

Then there is the story of Job. Those moments when EVERYTHING is taken away and even the best advice given is “curse God and die” (remember eventually even Job cursed the day he was born). It is at the moment when every LOGICAL bone in your body can see nothing that seems like you should be “thankful” for it or like there is any reason to “worship” God who has turned his back on you that you have been given a rare and precious gift …

You have an opportunity to give something to God that is not MERELY “His due”. You have a choice and opportunity to offer “praise” when there is no circumstance that suggests any praise is due. You have a choice and opportunity to offer “worship” when it feels like God has abandonded you and you have no REASON to worship. How many opportunities come along in life for the creature to offer to the CREATOR a gift that is not demonstrably earned and deserved? How often will we have an opportunity to give GOD trust IN SPITE of everything we see and feel?

Job did and he is remembered forever for it.
Perhaps our greatest moments of hardship are a rare and precious GIFT from God … an opportunity to GIVE TO God.

[Just some thoughts to keep or ignore as you think best.]

And so… May I ask what good has come out of those tragedies?

Yes, The Lord provided more children but I wonder if Job really got over the initial trauma of loosing his family…. So, what was the purpose of that loss, indeed any loss. Honestly, I’m not at the stage of understanding why the innocent must suffer and die… for what greater good? Does that make me a better Christian, more in love with God? I don’t know that answer but it does make me sensitive to the plights of others. Am I prepared for Revelations, for more pain and suffering? My prayer every morning & evening is come Jesus come. That’s when the dead will rise and I will once again be with them in eternity.