Grief and loss are part of this mortal journey. I experienced this at age 26, only six weeks after I was married the first time, when my brother Errol suffered unspeakable pain over a three-year period before he died of a brain tumor at age 17. Before losing Errol, I had never known such grief. 15 years later, my marriage came to a painful end. After a brief second marriage six years later, I went through another divorce. And six years after that, my sweet 24-year-old son Henry was killed in a rock-climbing accident while ascending Del Campo Peak in Washington. My mother’s death followed only four months later. Multiple “Abrahamic tests” have been a monumental part of my journey in this life.
I have often wondered why a loving and all-powerful God would require us to experience such excruciating losses. If he is all powerful, why does he require us to experience loss and grief, when he could have chosen to design our mortal experience differently? In October General Conference 2012, Elder Shayne M. Bowen spoke about the death of his infant son:
“Sometimes people will ask, ‘How long did it take you to get over it?’ The truth is, you will never completely get over it until you are together once again with your departed loved ones. I will never have a fulness of joy until we are reunited in the morning of the First Resurrection.”
Usually, we speak about the purpose of grief and loss, if at all, in unhelpful generalities like “we are supposed to learn from it.” But that really isn’t good enough. Many who have lost loved ones have become embittered by such explanations and simply walked away from faith at the time they needed it most. What are we supposed to learn? And why do we have to learn it in a way that brings so much pain? Elder Bowen taught this doctrine in a more specific and more helpful way:
“I have learned that the bitter, almost unbearable pain can become sweet as you turn to your Father in Heaven and plead for His comfort that comes through His plan; His Son, Jesus Christ; and His Comforter, who is the Holy Ghost.”
How can the bitter experience of losing a loved one through death or divorce become sweet if we will never completely get over it in this life? Again, Elder Bowen taught:
“What a glorious blessing this is in our lives. Wouldn’t it be tragic if we didn’t feel great sorrow when we lose a child? How grateful I am to my Father in Heaven that He allows us to love deeply and love eternally.”
We suffer grief and pain because we love deeply. That bitter pain becomes “sweet” because it is beautiful. This doesn’t mean the loss ceases to be painful. But we can uncover the depth of our love by experiencing loss more than any other way. As Elder Russell M. Nelson taught in his message entitled The Doors of Death in April 1992, “The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.” There are things about love we can only come to know through loss that we could not discover any other way.
The great Revolutionary War writer Thomas Paine wrote that we only value things we obtain at a price:
“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
The same thing can be said of the people we love most. If we did not experience loss, we would take our loved ones for granted and fail to truly value those relationships. When we have ached for the loss of a child or a spouse, we understand more deeply how much we value them, and we love with greater intensity and purpose.
C.S. Lewis similarly said in his book The Four Loves that loving another person inevitably incurs suffering. Pain is the price of admission to the joy of love.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
Many of us go through life exactly like Lewis described—trying at all hazards to avoid being hurt. Many of my divorced or widowed friends cannot imagine putting their hearts at risk again and, thereby, they forgo the greatest blessing of mortality, which is the opportunity to love and be loved.
Over time, the wound of a great loss becomes a scar. The almost unbearable agony is replaced by a deep longing. Occasionally, even years later, a thought or memory may surface, and we find ourselves experiencing the pain of the loss again for a moment. As Elder Bowen said, we never really get over it, and we will not experience a fullness of joy until we are reunited with all our loved ones. But this does not mean we can never be happy again. We learn to live with the loss and create a happy life that includes intentionally recalling the warm memories of the person we loved. I know my son Henry would want me to do that. He believed I was the most positive person he knew, and he would not want his death to change that.
I have come to a great realization in my experiences with grief and loss. If I could live my life again and avoid the pain of losing Henry by not being his father, I would still choose to be his dad—every time. And in that realization, I have come to understand that the pain of loss is beautiful. I would not wish it away even if I could. I will never get over the loss—and I don’t even want to get over it. As Elder Bowen said, it would be tragic “if we didn’t feel great sorrow when we lose a child[.]” Part of being a child of God is learning to love as He loves. And that includes feeling pain over the loss of someone I love.
Whether you have lost a spouse to death or divorce, you have known the pain of loving tenderly, feeling your heart shattered in a million pieces, and knowing that only the love of Christ can sustain you so you can cherish the love you shared without minimizing, hiding, or pretending—and without living the rest of your life in bitterness. The love of Christ enables you to go forward loving boldly—even fiercely—feeling whatever pain you encounter, but with no regret. This is how a mere mortal becomes like God. The Apostle John wrote:
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8).
Jesus also said that “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Jesus demonstrated more than anyone else that love has a price—and He was willing to pay it because He loved us.
If you have known the pain of a shattered heart, remember that this pain is beautiful because it reflects a love deeper than the pain—and it is combined with gratitude and joy for the love you have been blessed with. As Jesus bears the tokens of His crucifixion in his hands as a sign of his unending love, so you bear the scars in your heart for the loss of a love too deep for words.
I thank a loving Father in Heaven for the capacity to love, because that is the greatest source of joy we have in time and eternity. And remember that the pain we experience in mortality is temporary. God’s most loving and hopeful promise is that, in His presence: “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4). I thank a loving Father in Heaven for the hope that promise fills me with of a glorious day when I can gather all my loved ones around me with no more death, no more sorrow, and no more pain. Until then, as Elder Orson Whitney said in April Conference 1929, I will “Hope on, trust on, till [I] see the salvation of God.”
LindaSeptember 2, 2025
What a beautiful, heartfelt article. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and words.
Rochelle HaleSeptember 2, 2025
"The pain now is part of the happiness then" is another quote attributed to C.S. Lewis. In Mosiah 18:9, we learn that mourning with others is a covenant we make at baptism. Alma 28:12 While many thousands of others truly mourn for the loss of their kindred, yet they rejoice and exult in the hope, and even know, according to the promises of the Lord, that they are raised to dwell at the right hand of God, in a state of never-ending happiness. I am not a mourner or a griever. Do I miss my loved ones who have passed on? Absolutely! Am I sad for those who suffer devastating illness or are even drawn to suicide? Yes! Do I ask many "What if...?" Most assuredly. What if I had called? What if this situation had been different? What could the person in pain have done differently? Was I the best friend, sister, or neighbor that I could have been? Is there something I could have done to prevent a suicide or to offer more comfort during an illness or life challenge? I sometimes feel guilty that I do not, in a sense, "sit Shiva" as our Jewish friends do. I have not had the "luxury" of leaving all the cares of the world to experience a period of mourning. I do not weep, wail, or become depressed. I have had to be about the business of moving forward (especially after divorce or serious illness). In many cases, I have had to be strong for others who did not have a sense of hope or a real understanding of what life after life might involve, and who did not share the same belief that they could someday see and live with their loved ones again. For many, deep grief goes on for years and years. After the suicide of a child, one relative sought insight from various religions, counseling, and even psychic readings in an effort to be comforted and to gain some idea of life after death. We grieve because we love. I don't believe I love less because I do not openly express my mourning. I will never forget the joy of returning to my grandmother's hospital room, as others were leaving, to give her one last hug and whisper words of reassurance. I regret that circumstances were not such that I could do the same when my own mother passed. Nevertheless, I am grateful that my mother's suffering did not continue. I cannot imagine how our Heavenly Father watched His Son suffer unthinkable things, yet the love of both of them was all for us. We can put our hope in their joyful and eternal plan.