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Grief is a powerful emotion that makes you feel trapped with no way out. Look to the Word of God and His eight gifts to help you combat your grief and find hope again. Find this title and others listed in Lutheran Life at cph.org/llresources. GETTING THROUGH GRIEF All die. That truth hurts. Just a few weeks ago, my neighbor closed her eyes and breathed her last. Family surrounded her. They invited me in to speak a word. She was our friend. Her sons wept. We prayed. Hearts hurt with the pain of loss that day. All die, but the loss of life is not what God intended. Death was tragically birthed by humanity's union with a spirit of self-sufficiency. Decay set in when we deter- mined God wasn't enough. A new reality of illness, suf- fering, struggle, loss, and death took hold in creation when people fell away from God's perfect will and plan. "Death and taxes" became a catchphrase of certainty. Funerals were added to the life-event lineup of births, graduations, and weddings. All die, sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly. For anyone who forgot, COVID-19 delivered a frightful re- minder of the wages of sin. All die. Distraction and busyness and the pursuit of goals can keep you from the stark reality for only so long. Even the wealthy, powerful, wise King Solomon had to face the fact: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die" (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2). There is no way around it, but there is a way through it. Embedded in Solomon's words is the radical shift ef- fected by God's gracious intervention after the Garden of Eden calamity. Death would be transformed from an irrevocable state to a temporary season, from a hope- less certainty to a momentary stage. With self-sacrificial love beyond any love anyone could muster, God sent His Son to carry the weight of broken and sinful humanity. But Jesus didn't stop there. He plunged deeper, into the darkness of death, suffering the suffocating punishment for our rejection of God. Jesus died. His battered corpse became cold. He was laid breathless in a tomb. But early that Sunday morn- ing, His lifeless body took a deep breath! Air filled His lungs again. His heart began beating. Blood coursed through His once-collapsed arteries. His eyes opened. He was raised to life. Death changed from permanence to a season—just a season. God's Word declares the good news: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried there- fore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:3–4). The way through death has been revealed: "In Christ shall all be made alive!" Loved ones who die in faith, your hurting heart, your wounded soul, your struggling spirit—in Christ, there is new and everlasting life! Through Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, your loss is temporary, your wounds will heal, and your struggles will cease. Death has be- come a season. It is transitory and fading. It hurts, but even when the din of death overwhelms, the Creator God is revealed to us—He who "will wipe away every tear," who promises that "death shall be no more," who provides the certain hope that mourning, crying, and pain will be no more because He is "making all things new" (Revelation 21:4, 5). In Jesus, God rendered death a season. It is a season He brings you through by His grace to new and vibrant life that lasts forever. In Christ, Death Has Become a Season BY MICHAEL NEWMAN

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