Tim Tucker posts about grief and loss
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.
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/.
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.
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.
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.
Tim was on CCFM radio station sharing about Finding Life After Death: a biblical survivor’s guide. Check out the two parts of the interview below. To find out where to buy the book, please go to: https://linktr.ee/tim.tuckerbooks
The following extracts were read by Matt Britton at our launch event in Manchester. Please click here for more information about Finding Life After Death: a biblical survivor’s guide.
[This article serves as the foreword to my new book, Finding Life After Death, a biblical survivor’s guide]
When Tim asked me to write a foreword for this book, my heart sank because I knew that I could not do it faithfully without confronting myself.
I have known him as a friend and a mentor and have tracked his journey with grief very closely. Recently, when a friend suddenly lost his wife to cancer, leaving him with three young children, I was grateful for Tim’s generosity and courage in sharing his story and processing his emotions in his first book, Grief and Grace, as we could use it as a guide to navigate the perilous waters of grief. This is one of the stories you will encounter in this book.
It is one thing to stand with someone in their grief as a consoling partner when tragedy strikes. It is another thing entirely to face your own grief.
About three years ago, a man I considered a mentor passed away following a short illness. His death revealed the pedestal I had placed him on, fuelled by my admiration and gratitude. I had learned so much from him and had looked forward to learning more. His death was a dagger to my heart because I had taken his continued presence in my life as a certainty, not really having contemplated something different. Like me, many mourned his passing and shared how they had been deeply impacted by his life. Shortly after his death, an investigator’s report revealed and concluded that my mentor had been guilty of abusing women and of living a life that contradicted the message that he taught and was well-known for. The painful testimonies of women dealt a blow to the image I had of this man and I was faced with the second death, that of my mentor as I had known him.
I then watched as the organisation I loved, composed of diverse communities worldwide, crumbled. I observed colleagues striving to reimagine their future, some, sadly, at the expense of integrity and godly character. I watched friendships that were seemingly forged by ‘heaven’ fall apart, and friends who were inseparable, frame each other in ways that made reconciliation a pipe dream. I watched as many were forced to relive their woundedness from their pasts as the themes in the revelations resembled their personal stories of abuse. I watched as we, known for being courageous in giving thoughtful answers to life’s tough questions, lost our collective voice and credibility to give a response to many who found new questions in the story.
During this time, I became involved in starting and leading a charity organisation that had, and continues to have, a profound impact on under-resourced communities. I got involved in leading peace-making and mediation efforts within corporations, schools, and sporting teams. I picked up qualifications in negotiations and dispute resolution, sports management and earned my master’s degree in international Affairs (cybersecurity) from the department of defence studies at one of world’s premier universities in the field.
One day, my wife held my hand and with all the love and gentleness in her eyes, looked at me and said “You have and are doing well with all your academic and professional accomplishments. But I think it’s also time that you hear that you are running away from your own grief. You are running at a fast pace doing really good things, but I think you are afraid of slowing down lest your broken heart catches up to you”. On that very day, I received a text from Tim, asking me to write a preface to his book. My heart sank.
From Tim’s previous book, I learned that without a proper guide, grief can become the uninvited guest who refuses to be ignored, outpaced, or willed away. She doesn’t heed the hints from one’s overly subscribed calendar nor does she regard the library of intellectual answers one can muster in a philosophy class. Instead, she colludes with time to lodge herself deep in the crevices of one’s soul, casting long, lingering shadows on the familiar — on the laughter that once danced effortlessly in the room, on the simple joy of morning coffee, on the comforting hug of a routine day. She imposes herself on the contours of the known, turning bright days grey, and in her wake, leaves a quiet dissonance that reverberates through the mundane, constantly reminding one of her unyielding presence. You can’t outrun grief.
As I read the manuscript, I received a fresh invitation to walk with God through a chapter in my life that I had wished many times would just be erased in time. I received fresh courage to ask my questions anew, questions that I had buried underneath layers of intellectual soil. I paused when Tim gently asked the reader to reflect on the major thoughts in every chapter. I prayed honest prayers and admitted that I needed God to help me mourn appropriately.
In the book, Tim writes, “Death is painful for those that remain. No matter how we try to explain it, rationalise it or theologise about it, death is painful. And the counsel the bible provides is that mourning is a righteous and necessary response to death.”
As you read the book, may you hear the voice that validates your anguish, connects you to meaning during a painful season and gives you a vision of God’s ‘life after death’.
*****to purchase Finding Life After Death, see https://linktr.ee/tim.tuckerbooks*****
My new book is soon to be released. Finding Life After Death: a biblical survivor’s guide is my fifth book, and the third that specifically deals with the subject of grief and loss. Having never wanted to be the grief guy, no one is more surprised than I am that I continue to write and speak on the subject. There are two primary reasons that I continue to do so.
Firstly, because it has contributed to my healing and sense of purpose beyond the death of my first wife in 2016. It has been particularly encouraging that my journey through grief has been helpful to other people. I am constantly humbled by the feedback I’ve received from the account of deep grief that I shared in Grief and Grace: facing the future I didn’t choose. I’ve seen this as one way that God has redeemed my pain.
Secondly, I’m writing and speaking on the subject because it seems that very few other people are! As a Christian, I believe we simply have to talk more about death and grief, particularly as there is so much pain and suffering in the world. People are asking difficult questions. I believe the Bible is the primary source book where we can find hope in seemingly hopeless situations. In Finding Life After Death I seek to provide Christians with a biblical framework to help us navigate the immense problems of pain. The book is interwoven with my personal story together with accounts of the journey of many people who have also faced traumatic loss.
My friend, Luxolo Kentane, (national director of Alpha South Africa) says this, “Death is a difficult topic to speak about. But Tim does so with theological richness and with a pastoral posture. This book will give handles on how to navigate the rough waters of grief and death.” I trust this will be true.
Over the next few months, I will be hosting numerous events to share about the book and encourage people to engage with this topic. Although this sounds like a heavy subject, the book launch tour is intended to help break the stigma of talking about death and grief. After all, it is something everyone will face at some point in their lives and the bible has a lot to say about it. Being clear on what the bible teaches can also help us represent Christ in a world that experiences so much suffering.
By combining the book launch events with live music by my wife ChrissyT (herself releasing a new EP), the evenings will be relaxed, engaging and inspiring. Sharing our life experiences, we trust to connect with our guests on a deep level and provide encouragement to remain faithful to God through all of life’s circumstances.
So here are some important links:
Click here to find out more about the book and the options to pre-order physical copies or on Kindle
Click here to buy tickets for our upcoming UK tour
Click here to find out about the first launch event in Cape Town
Or keep an eye on my social media platforms for more information: @TimTuckerSA
I look forward to hearing feedback from the book and seeing many of you at one of the launch events.
Firstly, I need to confess that I do love Christmas. I always have. I experience a sense of awe at this time of year and I love the celebrations that surround commemorating that first Christmas in Bethlehem. Even though I recognise that Christmas happiness has been commercialised on an atomic scale, I still feel that this time of year holds special treasures that we can delightfully uncover.
However, I also realise that juxtaposed with the joy of Christmas, many people find that it is a time when their grief is amplified. I remember my first Christmas after my late-wife Laura died. I travelled with my kids from South Africa to the UK to be with family. I was exhausted and in survival mode. It was a relief to be with family. But the loss of Laura weighed heavily as we sought to navigate how to celebrate Christmas while acknowledging the massive void that existed. As with so many aspects of grief, there is no right way or wrong way to do this. Yet, seasons like this are a reality to be faced as they are troubled waters that have to be navigated.
I think we simply need to acknowledge that. For every person celebrating with abandon, there is someone else facing their worst nightmare. Both last December and last week, I attended funerals and felt deep compassion for families facing an immediate Christmas season in the aftermath of unimaginable loss.
In my book Grief and Grace, I speak about grief as a sixth sense, one that dominates all other senses while we are experiencing deep loss. This sixth sense can be particularly prominent during festive occasions like Christmas, birthdays and anniversaries. It can make singing of Christmas carols difficult where refrains like Joy to the World and other such proclamations don’t sit with one’s current reality. Family gatherings are tricky because a person who was always present is now missing. The sixth sense can cast a shadow and it’s important to find ways to acknowledge and even express it.
This year, there is perhaps a global sixth sense that things are simply not as they should be. Our news feed is filled with distressing scenes from the very part of the world where the angels proclaimed that a Saviour was born who would bring peace on earth. Maybe this Christmas, we’re all struggling to reconcile the songs we’re singing in church about the prince of peace who was born in a manger, with the realities of war, turmoil and grief that emanate from Israel and Palestine, and from many other parts of the world.
Rather than simply ignore the sixth sense we’re experiencing, whether through personal grief or due to global events, my encouragement is that you take some time to reflect and acknowledge the tension, pain or confusion you are feeling. Perhaps reflect on the Christmas story recognising the tension that exists because the prince of peace in the manger was destined to die a cruel death on a Roman cross. Or consider Mary, who in that moment experienced wonder and joy but was also to discover that her own heart would be pierced (see Luke 2:33-35).
Or maybe find some poems or songs that are not just all happy and celebratory, but can enable you to sit and meditate on the deeper condition of your soul as you navigate grief. One such song that I have found incredibly helpful is by U2, Peace on Earth. It is a cry to Jesus in the midst of turmoil. The song concludes with the following words:
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
To tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
Jesus in the song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won’t rhyme
So what’s it worth?
This peace on Earth, peace on Earth, peace on Earth, peace on Earth.Source: LyricFind, Songwriters: Adam Clayton / Dave Evans / Larry Mullen / Paul David Hewson
Peace on Earth lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
The song ends with an unanswered question. This is the reality of grief. We never have all our questions answered. However, recognising the pain of unanswered questions is an important part of our healing process. In whatever ways you are currently experiencing the sixth sense of grief, my prayer for you this Christmas is that you will be able to find a measure of healing and hope as you traverse the difficult terrain that grief takes us through.