Grieving with Hope with Danielle Anderson
On today’s episode, we’re chatting with Danielle Anderson about anchoring in God’s Word, specifically in the midst of our grief. Danielle is a speaker and teacher of women’s Bible studies. Since the loss of her son in 2013, she has been on a journey of grief and restoration. Danielle has served with The Gospel Coalition’s Women’s Training Network and contributed to the books His Testimonies, My Heritage: Women of Color on the Word of God and Joy in the Sorrow. She is married to Tedashii, a Christian hip hop artist, and they live in Atlanta with three energetic sons.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Can you tell us a little about who you are and what you do?
As we're talking right now, we're still navigating the realities of COVID 19. How have you cared for yourself emotionally, physically, and spiritually during this time?
How do you get into the Word in this season of your life? Why is it important for you to prioritize that time?
What does it look like for you to grow in your knowledge of who God is and live out of what he has done for us?
How do you maintain faith in a holy God when something as tragic as losing your son happens?
How did you cling to the gospel in the midst of suffering?
How did your community come alongside you and support you during this difficult time?
How do you remember the gospel in the midst of everyday struggles that feel like they should be easy when held up against something as terrible as losing a child?
NOTEWORTHY QUOTES
“When I seek Christ more in his actual context, stuff starts to stand off the page that I never saw before. It really helps me to know and experience his power more intimately.”
“I try to learn more of the person and work of Christ through that ancient culture.”
“I don’t do this alone: I do this with my kids, with my husband, with my friends...that communal learning, that communal accountability really does help me grow in who God is.”
“I obviously don’t know all there is to know about God, so I benefit from hearing from my brothers and sisters in Christ.”
“The difference between guilt and shame. Guilt says ‘I did something wrong,’ and shame says ‘There’s something wrong with me.’”
“Shame is a tool that the enemy can use to steal us away from that life and abundance that Christ has come to give us.”
“My daily prayer is ‘Lord, help me to remember.’”
“Maintaining a faith in a holy God...honestly it felt like my only option at the time.”
“I remember logically reasoning that I knew that God was good, I knew that God was sovereign, I knew he was in control. And I really believed that those things were true. I really believed that he was the best place for me to be in the midst of my pain and my anger and my hurt. But I felt like I had nowhere else to go.”
“It felt like I was a little girl banging on my dad’s chest in frustration and anger while he held me tight. Knowing that he was the best place for me to go, but I was really mad, I was really hurt and frustrated that he would write my story in this way, that he would allow this in my story.”
“I learned to exist in this weird tension of ‘I don’t understand it, I do know that you’re good, I do know that you’re in control, I also know that you allowed my son to pass away,’ and there’s just this weird tension that now exists in life.”
“It was really the help of friends that guided my thinking towards true and right thinking.”
“When it comes to walking alongside others in grief, there are no perfect words, for those who are walking alongside what I call ‘the suffering other,’ free yourself from the weight that there are perfect words to say. They don’t exist. But a skill you can grow in is to learn to ask good questions, to speak the truth, to not feel the need to all the time correct instantaneously. The suffering other, the person who’s in pain might say something that seems blasphemous and sometimes you can let them sit in that and say that without feeling the need to correct them.”
“There are no what-if’s in the will of God” - Corrie Ten Boom
There are no what-if’s in the will of God. This is how God chose to write your story, this is how the Lord chose to number Chase’s days. As painful as it was to remind myself of that, it was true.”
“I thought, ‘the enemy will surely take it easy on a grieving mom, surely I will get a rest from his attacks and his schemes.’ But a close friend at the time said, ‘oh no, dear sister, you’re all the more easy prey.’ I needed to hear that because it made me want to be intentional with my mind, with my body, with my spirit, to make sure that by God’s power I was taking in messages that were true and I was saturating myself in his truth, rather than my own illogical thinking.”
“I had a lot of things in my mind that seemed really reasonable and logical to me that were not true, and my friends were able to tell me ‘no no no, that’s not how God’s voice sounds. That’s not his truth.’”
“My friend would pray Scripture over me and text me Scripture all the time.”
“God is the God of all comfort, we might be perplexed, but we’re never driven to despair.”
“Even though I wear this letter of grieving mom, it doesn’t make me immune to sin. It’s not a shield that protects me from frustrations towards my kids who I get to be with now.”
“I teach my kids how to feel… I try to validate their emotions.”
“The Lord is not afraid of our emotions or our questions, he’s not mad at us for having emotions.”
“Something else I do with my kids is that I don’t shy away from hard questions. I encourage them to talk. I want to meet them where they are.”
Re: racial injustice “I would encourage people to anchor in God’s Scripture and in God’s heart. And to acknowledge, yes, sin and oppression and injustice still exist and there are systems in place in our own nation that can fuel those things. God’s heart grieves this too. This is sin. This is ugly. This is evil. What do we do with that? Well, we can talk about it honestly. We can beg for help from the Lord. We can beg for help from the Lord to enter into conversations with grace and understanding especially when we don’t fully get it. I know there are a lot of people who may not understand the level of depth that some others, especially black mothers and parents and parents of black boys, face when you hear news stories like this.”
“You don’t have to have a black son to be able to offer compassion and empathy and fight to understand and enter into this space. To care, to show care for a human being made in God’s image, who was treated in a way less than what he was worth.”
“A person made in God’s image was lost. If I don’t know anything else about the situation, I can start there. I can lament, I can empathize, I can show compassion. But so often we don’t start here, and that’s where we get into these really ugly conversations and our heart of love and compassion and care for our neighbor seems to go out the window.”
“If we can anchor in who God is and who humans are who are as made in his image, I think we will do ourselves a great service in moving forward in these conversations.”
“Be present and honest about where you are and seek the Lord in those spaces.”
“Know yourself so that you might know your God.”
“If and when I know I am sick and I’m broken, then I can moreso experience and know my God as doctor, as healer, as comforter. When I know that I am in need and I am in a place of scarcity, I know I can go to God because he is a place of abundance and is more-than-enough.”
Hunter’s additional insight:
“Danielle and I recorded this conversation on May 22. Just three days later, on May 25, George Floyd, a 46 year-old Black man, was murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota during his arrest by a White police officer. This heightened racial tensions in the U.S., leaving us with a question that’s a lot like the one I asked Danielle in regard to Ahmaud Aubery. How do we, the Church, respond to injustice in a manner that is worthy of the gospel?
As soon as I saw the news about George Floyd, Danielle’s exhortation to grieve a life lost came to my mind. This is in line with Romans 12:15 which says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” So I did. When an image bearer of God is murdered, we lament and mourn (Rom. 12:15).
If you look at the nightly news, which is always difficult for me, but especially now, it doesn’t take a person long to see that our world is full of suffering and wrongdoing. If our hearts aren’t broken by that reality, we need to pray that God would soften them. On this side of Genesis 3, our need for a Saviour is evident. Jesus didn’t run away from our injustice and brokenness. He entered into it. Lived in it. Died for it. And the joy that we experience in him as a result of his finished work on the cross ought to drive us to tell others about the hope that we have in Christ and to offer tangible help to express our genuine, sacrificial love and care!
And as we run, or maybe limp or crawl if we’re feeling super weary, we too hope in Christ alone, knowing that God is just and the justifier. He has the final say. His mercy was displayed through his ultimate act of justice, when Christ took our sin upon himself and experienced all of our injustice on the cross. He alone is our peace, reconciling us to God and to one another in one body. Christ is our hope. My sincere prayer is that in him, we--the church—will walk humbly towards glory—together—unified by the blood of Christ--testifying to the hope and the peace that we have in him, seeking God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven as we long for all things to be made right.”
Danielle’s additional insight:
“This is a complex question with a complex answer. But one basic first step I want to encourage the Church toward is telling the truth. Absolutely, the truth of scripture, but also, by being honest about the truth of the history of our nation. It may be hard to embrace, but the injustice that we see today is fruit of seeds that were planted long ago. I have watched too many people dismiss history, but we have a legacy in this country of not valuing all lives, especially the lives of people of color.
If we embrace that the past life, death, burial and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ has present implications, then we should be willing to embrace that our nation's past has present implications. And as our eyes are opened to that truth, let us be willing to learn, lament, confess, repent, and listen as we move forward in the power, strength and hope of Christ.
DANIELLE’S RESOURCES
Ways to care for yourself: Moving every day, Sabbath, Getting in the Word in the morning
New Morning Mercies by Paul David Tripp
Prophetic Lament by Soong Chan-Rah
Joy in the Sorrow by Matt Chandler and Friends
(Tedashii and Danielle contributed to this book)
Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering by Tim Keller
From Grief to Glory by James W. Bruce
(specifically for those who have lost a child)
Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop
Video on the Village Church’s website
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
What are some ways you can prioritize caring for yourself emotionally, physically, and spiritually?
How can you grow in your knowledge of who God is and how you live out of what he has done for us?
How has the gospel been a rock for you in the midst of a time of suffering?
How can you come alongside someone who is walking through a season of grieving or suffering?
What are you going to do or implement as a result of what you’ve learned this week?
IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
Affiliate links used are used where appropriate. Thank you for supporting the products that support Journeywomen!
FOR MORE OF JOURNEYWOMEN
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Follow Us: Instagram | Facebook
Support the podcast by writing a review
