The Grief of David

I am reminded of two scenes of grief - both expressed by the psalmist David, the man after God's own heart.

The first was at the death of his infant son with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:15-23). David pleaded with God for the child, fasted and wept before the Lord. Despite all that, the child died. Before the child died, David said, 'who can tell me whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child might live?

We are aware that cancer is a deadly disease. Despite that we continued to pray and seek the Lord for healing and hoped against hope like Abraham did. For who knows whether the Lord might be merciful? Yet when the outcome is to the contrary, as painful as it is, we must pick ourselves up and move on like David did.

I suppose David spoke for all of us when he said this after the child had died, 'can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me'.

The second scene was when he heard that his adult son Absalom had died. (2 Samuel 18:33, 19:1-4). He was overcome with emotion and grief when he cried, 'O my son Absalom - if only I had died in your place! O Absalom my son, my son!'. The pain that he felt in his heart was like as if he could have died in Absalom's place.

The day of victory in battle that day became a day of mourning as the king grieved over the death of his son.

No matter what victories and blessings that follow us in the days to come ('surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life') our joys will always be tempered by the grief of this loss. It has been a few months now but just the thought of Kathryn always brings a tear.

What can I say but that David really expressed what goes on in our hearts and our minds over our loss at this time when he was grieving over the loss of his sons on these two occasions.

23 October 2010