Grief, Loss, and Love

Grief, Love, and the Hope of Eternal Life

When someone you love dies, the world keeps going but your world cracks open. The ache, the tears, the dullness all point to one truth: you loved—and now they’re gone. We don’t cry over nothing. We cry because someone else mattered.

But in the teachings revealed through Emanuel Swedenborg, and in the Lord’s own presence, we glimpse a deeper truth: grief can be understood, and love cannot die.

Grief Is Love Still Reaching

You grieve because you loved.

Grief isn’t random. It’s not weakness. It’s love that had somewhere to go, and now it doesn’t. You might feel lost, raw, angry, or numb. That’s not a sign that something’s gone wrong inside you. It’s the soul reacting to absence.

Grief can mingle with relief or guilt, feelings that can surprise and confuse us.  If that’s you, you're not alone. Many of us have felt that too, and sometimes it helps just to say it out loud.

Grief can feel like trying to breathe through a wool blanket.

In the New Church we believe that every emotion begins in love. Joy rises when love is fulfilled, fear when love is threatened, and grief when love is separated from what it longs for.

"All distress and grief are the result of being deprived of the things for which we have affection, that is, what we love.” —Secrets of Heaven 2689

So grief isn’t a problem to fix. It’s what love feels like when the person we love is no longer within reach.

This is why grief affects the whole person: body, mind, and spirit. Because love is the soul of who we are. And when that love loses contact, the whole being feels it.

The Person You Love Is Still Alive

Even if this feels far-off right now, here’s the hope many of us rely on: we believe that death is simply the soul leaving the physical body and waking up in the spiritual world. The people we call angels are people who once lived on earth. They still look human. They still think and feel and grow. And the moment after death, they are met by angels who gently welcome them into eternal life.

Your loved one—the real, spiritual person—is still alive and in the Lord’s care. And your love for them still matters. Some teachings even suggest that those in heaven can feel the love we still have for them.

They do not grieve for themselves, but they may feel our sorrow, and long for us to feel peace. They understand that time is only an appearance. For them, our separation feels like an evening, not an era. And they trust that reunion is coming..

Love Needs Presence

But in the meantime, we remain here, in grief. Because love feels like sadness when it can’t make contact, and that hurt is proof your heart is still working exactly as it should.

Even if they feel our love, we cannot fully feel theirs. That absence is real, and it hurts. Not because we’re failing to understand something, but because something sacred is missing.

Love without presence is like salt that has lost its saltiness. It is still love. But we can feel what’s missing.

Love finds its fullest meaning when it reaches all the way to action, when it comes into the body, into contact, into presence. That’s why angels have bodies. That’s why the Lord was born in this world. Love longs to be with that which it loves.

The Lord Grieves With You

The Lord doesn’t wish this grief upon you. But He enters it with you.

You’ve heard that His mercy is infinite? Mercy literally means a heart that grieves. The Lord knows all things will be made right in time, and yet He still grieves with us. Because right now, your love is real. And your grief is real.

When Jesus saw Mary and Martha grieving their brother Lazarus, He didn’t tell them to have faith. He didn’t rush to the miracle. First, He stood beside them.

And He wept.

“As long as our trials continue, we think the Lord is absent... sometimes to the point where despair almost prevents us from believing God exists at all. But the Lord is closer than we can possibly believe.” —Secrets of Heaven 8400

The Lord is with you, even in the valley, even in the shadow. However long it lasts, He stays. Because He loves you. And He longs, more than anything, for you to feel that love, and be comforted.