Hopeless Grief?

Late yesterday morning I posted the following on my twitter account:

"Pondering appropriate responses to grief in another when the person isn't a believer... Long story, but curious to know if you have thoughts"

The conversation didn't go very far on twitter (there's something limiting about 140 characters in a conversation of this nature!) though Christianne offered the helpful suggest of simply listening.

A day later, though, and no longer in the midst of the situation that inspired the tweet, and I'm still pondering.

Quite a number of people dear to me, and some that are acquaintances, have lost loved ones to untimely deaths in the last year or so.

It was that sort of situation I found myself in yesterday, as a coworker received news that someone they cared about had lost their battle to cancer.

There were tears and profanity (not unexpected or unusual - either the tears or the profanity - given the situation), and amidst that, I found myself wondering how to offer comfort.

Because the person who was grieving doesn't know Jesus, and to my knowledge, the person who passed away didn't either.

When faced with the death of someone who knows Jesus, death is at least not without hope.  Yes, that hope seems faint comfort, but it is there.

I am not one of those Christians who spends a lot of time thinking about heaven and hell.  "Fire insurance" as some term their reason for having faith in Christ, is pretty much at the bottom of my list of reasons for following Jesus.  I'm in love with a Savior who offers hope, healing, and joy here and now, amidst the chaos of life, and as a person I tend to be far more focused on the here and now than the eventualities of eternity.  (I tend to have a "I'll figure that one out when it actually comes" mentality about eternity, beyond the basic theological tenets of a belief that a relationship with Christ offers an eternity with him.)

I don't know how to find the hope and comfort in the death of someone who doesn't know Christ, and these last several months, as I've encountered several situations of death and grieving that fall into that category, I've been struck by the chord it has hit in my life.  By the contrast between those deaths and the deaths of those who I know I'll see again someday.

The chord continues to ring as I find myself unexpectedly grateful for the hope that a faith in Christ offers.  The hope of eternity, reunion, heaven.

I'm struggling to put words around it.  Struggling to name this shift within myself.  This wrestle.  These questions are touching deep places of wondering and faith in me, and so I'm thinking out loud in this space, even while I have more questions and uncertainties than answers and knowings.

I'm hesitating to throw out for the world to see that I have a belief in heaven and hell, knowing it's a controversial topic, and fearful of being pigeonholed when I'm not entirely certain that this is a belief and an understanding that will ever be fully defined for me.  When I'm fairly certain it is one that will change and grow with me in the days and years to come.

And so I'm inviting you into a dialogue about grief and comfort.  I'd like to know your thoughts on grieving and comfort.  Am I the only one who finds confronting grief in someone who didn't have a relationship with Christ, or confronting the death of one who didn't know Christ daunting?  As you've grieved, what has offered comfort?  It's an oddly macabre topic for the beginning of the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend, but it's what's floating through my mind and heart - it's what I'm pondering, and I'd love to engage in a dialogue over this with all of you.