When You Lose Someone: Bible Verses About Loss

Looking for Bible verses about loss? Maybe this article will help. The connections that we form with the people in our lives are precious. We put ourselves on the line whenever we love someone, exposing ourselves to potential heartache. As C.S. Lewis once wrote in The Four Loves:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and 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.”

For us to be fully human, we need to love others and be in relationship with them, and so the route of selfishness, while it seems safer, is the route towards being something less than human. If to love is to be vulnerable, then nowhere is that vulnerability shown more than when we lose a loved one.

Bible Verses About Loss

The loss of a loved one is a hardship all of us will face at one point in our lives or another. It’s part of the human condition, and so it’s no wonder that the Bible addresses this all-too-human reality. Although we all experience loss, that does not mean that we all experience it the same way. The Bible gives us wisdom and words of encouragement that can sustain us regardless of the journey we find ourselves on. Here are several Bible verses about loss.

A time and season for everything

Having a keen and open-eyed understanding of the world we live in can help us to cope with what we encounter in life. It can be daunting but knowing that we live in this “vale of tears” can help us by giving us resources that draw from the experiences and wisdom of others.

The books of wisdom in the Bible, such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, remind us of the different seasons of life we experience. When others go before us, they can tell us what they encountered and how they lived through it.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. – Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

We may be in a season of mourning a loss, but that is not the only season in life. While it may be difficult to see past the present season of grieving, the Lord is gracious to send us other seasons in life.

Jesus also warns his followers, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). We can be encouraged even in times of hardship because Jesus has overcome the world, and he has overcome death. While they may struggle with the reality of death here and now, believers have another horizon that informs their reaction to losing a loved one. It doesn’t make it hurt less, but it gives one hope.

Paul writes to anxious believers, saying, “And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). It may seem as though death has the final word, but that is far from the truth.

Loss brings up complicated feelings

Losing a loved one brings up many, complicated feelings. We may feel anger, relief, fear, or regret. Death is complicated, and at times it is further complicated by our relationships with the person we’ve lost. We can mull over the words we shouldn’t have said, or those we ought to have.

King David had a complicated relationship with his son Absalom. David had failed as a father, taking no action when his daughter Tamar, Absalom’s sister, was raped. This angered Absalom, and he took matters into his own hands, which led to the king exiling him.

And though David was persuaded to end his son’s exile, he never saw his son again till the young man’s death. Absalom started a rebellion against his father David but was killed in the attempt for the throne. All along during the difficulties with Absalom, David had been calling him “the young man.”

It is only when David heard that Absalom was slain that he called Absalom his son – “The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!”” (2 Samuel 18:33). The composer Eric Whitacre has set David’s cry to music in a piece called “When David heard,” in which the anguish of regret and David’s despair at this moment are given voice.

Often, when we experience loss, we too have deep despair that words cannot name, and so to read those words of David in Scripture or hear them in a piece of music can touch our pain and give it shape.

Community with us

Going through the loss of a loved one is not something we are meant to go through on our own. The community of faith has a role to play in the lives of those who are grieving. Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn.”

The burden of going through loss is made lighter when you have brothers and sisters walking with you on that journey. Having someone like a grief counselor walk with you is another way to process your loss and ensure that you are not dealing with things by yourself.

God will dry our tears

Whatever we go through, it’s important to remember that the Lord is near, and he is with us through our sorrows. Romans 8 tells us that nothing can separate us from God’s love for us through Jesus. God cares for us, and as the psalmist says:

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. – Psalm 147:3

The pain of loss can be overwhelming. God comes alongside us to not only bind up our wounds but to comfort us:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. – 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

As God comforts us, he imparts comfort that we can pass along to others in their time of need. Not only does God bind up our wounds and comfort us here and now, but he will do so at the end of all things, as Revelation says:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. – Revelation 21:1-4

Conclusion

Loss can bring us to our knees in despair, but it can also inspire other emotions and reactions that are just as complex and powerful. Working through them all doesn’t happen all at once, nor does it happen in isolation from others in your life. In addition to meditating on these Bible verses about loss, be sure to make an intentional connection with others to find the support you need.

Loss creates an absence and an ache that doesn’t go away, but whether through community or in therapy with a grief counselor, you can begin your journey toward living life and entering new seasons without your loved one. If you’re looking for additional support beyond the Bible verses about loss shared in this article and want someone to walk with you on your journey, don’t hesitate to contact one of the grief counselors in our online counselor directory to help you.