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Finding Life After Death, A Reflection by Racheal Mutesi

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This reflection was written by Racheal Mutesi after she had read Finding Life After Death: a biblical survivor’s guide.

If someone drew a dagger through my chest,
I don’t think my physical pain would override the agony in my soul.
For days now it has felt like I was riding on a motorway having the best time of my life when a heavy truck came and crushed me leaving me totally broken but not dead.
God knows I wished death more than this pain of humiliation; but when the pain grows deeper, you get a good book.

A book written by one who has known grief and somehow bounced back.
Bounced back from the shadow of death into the marvellous love of the One who loves us and holds us when all around us looks senseless and meaningless.

Life is cruel but His grace sustains us.
So, when you have cried in the loneliness of the night and there is no voice left to express your anguish and confusion, read a good book.
Read it to adjust your perspective.
You will find out that God is there even in the tempest.

Direct your sorrow to Him.

Read a good book and you will realize that you have a right to hurt;
Yes, you’ve got permission to process your pain.
Grief is painful and exhaustively draining;
But our comfort is that Christ wept.
He wept before Martha before revealing His power and willingness to bring the dead Lazarus back to life.

Weep!

This book will remind you that there is purpose in your pain.
The crucified Christ would usher men and women into everlasting life;
Likewise the groans of an expectant mother often turns into joy as she brings life into existence.
In your deepest anguish, reach out for a copy of “Finding life after death,”
You will adjust your perspective on pain; find time to process it  as you discover purpose amidst hardships..
Christ heals,
Christ restores,
That’s Tim’s story!
It is our story and song.

Racheal Mutesi lives in Kampala, Uganda, with her husband. She is the Project Manager of The Message Uganda and founder/Trustee of Ufahari Girls ministry.

Grief and the Mission of God

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This is a message I shared at Ridgeway Community Church, Didcot, in February 2025. This message coincided with the launch of my book, Finding Life After Death, a biblical survivor’s guide.

Death is often viewed as a taboo topic. In this message, I share that a) Christians are not immune, b) God redeems pain, and c) God is the resurrector – the one who brings life from death.

40 Days Loss and Grief on sale

40 Days – Time with God (Dealing with Loss and Grief)

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In August 2023, I received an email from Noelene Curry informing me of the passing of Pat Baxter and her intention to write a devotional book to honour Pat’s life and ministry. Drawing on some of Pat’s writings, Noelene collaborated with 14 other writers to complete 40 Days – Time with God (Dealing with Loss and Grief). The book was released in July 2024, and I feel privileged to have played a small part in this project.

This book serves as a valuable companion for anyone journeying through grief and loss. Many contributors share their personal stories, and as I worked through the book, I was reminded of the following verses:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Cor. 1:3-4).

This devotional guide provides comfort from people who have themselves received comfort from God. It is raw and emotional in many places, yet it is always filled with hope, rooted in a biblical perspective. As such, the book is full of compassion and will offer comfort and encouragement to those walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

The book addresses a topic that many find difficult to discuss. I particularly recommend it for those experiencing grief and loss. Reading can be particularly challenging when dealing with the exhaustion of grief, but this daily devotion offers a relevant and accessible way to engage with Scripture during a period of deep loss. It is also valuable for those who are not currently grieving, as it helps build spiritual resilience for when significant loss does occur (and let’s face it, none of us are immune).

The following quotes provide a taste of the book:

“Most of us choose not to think about dying, but if we view this unthinkable event through our faith, death tends to lose its sting.” (p.28).

“That is not to say that suffering is good or to be masochistically enjoyed, but it is necessary to go through it to find peace, joy, hope, and love on the other side.” (p.40).

“Lament anticipates new creation but also acknowledges the painful reality of now.” (p.43).

“It is important to affirm grief and the complexity within any experience of loss and pain.” (p.91).

“Roy T. Bennett said that the past is a place of reference, not a place of residence. This is profoundly true in the grief process.” (p.93).

“Jesus walks alongside us in our journey of grief, even when we don’t recognize him.” (p.97).

“There are so many things to do in dying situations, and God strongly urges rest.” (p.100).

40 Days – Time with God (Dealing with Loss and Grief) is available from many online stores. For more information, please visit https://godspromise.co.za/.

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Lament and the Mission of God (2)

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Part 2, My Ally in Grief

In part 1, I introduced the topic of lament as a key biblical process to help discover God’s purposes beyond our pain. Before considering the topic further, I want to share my context and how I discovered that God was my ally, not my enemy when I went through deep grief.

In 2016, my wife, Laura, died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. Over the past few years, I have written and shared extensively about facing the future I didn’t choose (please explore this website!) The following (adapted) extract from Grief and Grace shares some of how I related to God in the immediate aftermath of Laura’s death.

So where was God in all of this? How did my faith shape my response to this tragedy? Or, rather, how did walking through this tragedy shape my faith? When I was sitting by Laura’s bedside in hospital in the period before they turned off her life support, I had simply prayed, ‘Lord, everything I’ve believed since childhood had better be true’. Maybe it was a child-like or a childish prayer. But right then I needed a father. A daddy. And I called out to my heavenly father desperately hoping that he would give me the faith and resilience to survive the storm.

Laura passed away at 8.30 in the morning and a couple of hours later I was back at the holiday centre where we were staying. The news had been circulated and friends and family were traveling from various places to come and join us. While waiting, I went for a walk around the grounds of the centre – just needing some space and time alone. My mind was a bit numb and the gravity of what had just taken place was slowly beginning to sink in. My emotional turmoil was in stark contrast to the serene surroundings and incredible ocean views. At one point I stood still and tried to reflect on what I was feeling. I thought about God. Was I meant to feel angry with him for taking Laura too soon? Should I be resentful that this had happened to me? But my mind didn’t dwell on those things. Rather, in that moment, I experienced anger against death itself.

I hated death. Death is horrible. I had never felt this hatred for death before. Particularly the death of someone who still had so much to give. She still had so much life to live, and still had so many people to love. I had not invited death to visit my world and turn it upside down. But it came, unprepared as I was. And it occurred to me that death was not God’s plan. He hates death. And I wondered how he feels when, on a moment by moment basis, the creatures that he loves so much, have their life on this earth extinguished through a myriad of tragic events. ‘Wow’, I prayed, ‘that must cause you so much pain’.

And then it dawned on me that God was not celebrating that Laura had died. He never intended for a man to be left as a widower and for three children to grow up without their mother. No. God understood my pain for this was not his plan for human beings. He also understood my pain because, in order to defeat the consequences of death, he had watched his only Son die on the cross. This is what I’d believed since childhood. The truth of this historical fact had shaped my life. And now, when it mattered most, I didn’t feel disconnected from God. Instead, I felt that perhaps I could relate to him a bit better. We shared in this moment of grief. I realised that God was my ally, not my enemy. He was with me in the valley of the shadow of death.

My primary lesson throughout my grief journey has been that God is my ally. And he is my ally because we both lament death. It was never his plan. In the next article, I will look at the biblical evidence that God is a lamenting God who deeply identifies with our grief.

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Lament and the Mission of God (1)

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Part 1, Introduction

What image does the word “lament” bring to your mind? It can feel a bit Old Testament, can’t it? We associate lament with many of the psalms (indeed, seven of the first ten psalms are lamenting songs). There’s even a whole Old Testament book called Lamentations, which contains the laments of Jeremiah during a particularly tough time in Israel’s history.

But to consign lamenting to the Old Testament and conclude that it’s not relevant for New Testament believers would be a mistake. I hope to show in this series of articles that lament should play an intrinsic role in our lives as Christians. Becoming a Christian doesn’t make us immune from pain. But how we respond when we go through grief and loss is where the rubber hits the road of our faith. I believe that lamenting provides a powerful counter-cultural opportunity for us to not only find God’s tender mercy but also help us to identify with his overall mission. Now, the mission of God in the world is multi-faceted and I don’t want to run the risk of defining this too narrowly. However, for the purposes of these articles, I want to underline that God’s mission is to reveal his redeeming grace to humanity at large, and to us individually. Within that process, lament can be a critical component because it is often in the hardest times of life that we lean most heavily on God’s redemptive grace. We’ll unpack this further as we proceed through the articles.

The dictionary defines lament as a passionate expression of grief or sorrow. The implication is that lamenting is a deep form of mourning. However, author Mark Vroekop in his excellent book, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, provides greater nuance when considering Christian lament:

‘Lament is the honest cry of a hurting heart wrestling with the paradox of pain and the promise of God’s goodness… lament stands in the gap between pain and promise… Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust… lament is a path to praise as we are led through our brokenness and disappointment.’

I believe that the Bible teaches that God has provided lament as a means of grace through which we can express our grief, renew our trust in him, experience his redemptive grace, and discover God’s purposes beyond our pain. We will unpack this in the articles that follow as we reflect on the revelation that God laments, as we look at some biblical examples of lament, and as we consider lament as a pathway to healing. My prayer is that you will discover that lament needs to be a vital component of our discipleship through which we can more deeply engage with God’s mission to reveal his redeeming grace.

Finding Life: Video Series

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I recorded these short videos before the launch of Finding Life After Death: a biblical survivor’s guide. They give some additional insights that could help you as you engage with the book.

Introduction to Finding Life After Death: a biblical survivor’s guide.
Video 2: Perspective
Video 3: Pain
Video 4: Purpose

To find out more about the book and to see where you can purchase it, please click here.

REVIEW OF ‘FINDING LIFE AFTER DEATH: a biblical survivor’s guide

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Review by Noelene Curry, originally posted on her website https://godspromise.co.za/

From the dedication page of the book to the very last page, author Tim Tucker’s message is “We will not be shaken” (Psalm 62:2). We will not be shaken whether facing the death of a loved one, the end of a marriage, the loss of a job. No matter what, we will not be shaken if we continue to believe in the truth found in God’s Word.

We will grieve, we will weep, we will go through periods of deep lament, but we need not be shaken.

Tim manages to expound on Scripture in a way that makes one have hope when faced with death. He says, “When our perspective becomes so clouded by our pain, we might fail to be able to discern God’s purposes in and through suffering” but “we have the assurance that God is always at work in our lives and is working out His perfect purposes, even in our suffering”. Death is not the end; it is only the beginning of the rest of our lives that will be spent in God’s glorious Presence.

At the end of every chapter, there is a time to reflect with helpful questions, quotes, and Scripture references.

This book is filled with advice, wisdom, and hope that ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

I highly recommend this book.

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Book Review by David Meldrum

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Of all people, we Christians should be able to talk – amongst ourselves as well as with those who would not call themselves part of the Christian community – about death and mourning. Yet so often it feels to me that we’re scared of the conversations; we sing about death being defeated, but real discussion of it is, in my experience, rarely had. When death comes, in my experience of over 20 years of pastoral ministry, we tend to get the whole business dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible so that normal life can recommence.

It’s all more than a little out of kilter with a Jesus who stared death in the face and felt no shame at weeping when his friend Lazarus died – and He did so knowing how that story was going to end. In Ecclesiastes 7:4 we read that “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning”, but by this measure, many of us are short of wisdom. Tim Tucker is not one of those people; having experienced a tragic, sudden bereavement, this is his second book looking at the subject, and like the first one it’s a book that we’d all benefit from reading.

Clocking in at under 150 pages, it’s easy to read and always accessible; but that doesn’t mean it’s shallow. Far from it; this book contains brave engagements with what the Bible has to say about death and bereavement, and how God’s people are to deal with it. The book is also peppered with helpful guides for personal reflection or meditation; the online resources can be used with small groups as well.

A few years ago I – with the help of another member of the church – designed a Lent course for the church I was leading along these sort of lines. We called it ‘Prepare to Die (So You Can Live)’; it was, I know from what members of the church told me, the first time that some of them had given any sort of focused attention to the one thing we can say with certainty that we will all experience. We had Sunday sermons and midweek guided discussion groups; it was a helpful, if flawed, process for all of us. I dearly wish I had been able to use Tim Tucker’s books and other resources as a guide to what we were doing; it would have been a richer, truer experience for all of us. I can not commend this book highly enough.

Dave is an ordained Anglican priest originally from the UK. In 2010, he and his wife Bev moved to Cape Town, where Dave was Rector of a church until 2022. He is now exploring opportunities as a writer. He’s a husband, father, movie buff, reader and sports fan. He was provided with a copy of Finding Life After Death for this review. Dave has also written the reflection guide for Grief and Grace.

Finding Life After Death: a biblical survivor’s guide, is available from Amazon, The Message Trust, and Scripture Union. Please click here for purchase options.

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