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Be Not Afraid Griefthe ability to mask pain. And though it is “commonsense” that time heals, it may not be true for everyone.For some, the pain of grief intensifies with time.As for the popular notion of “closure,” Bud, who losthis 23-year-old daughter Julie in the 1995 bombing ofOklahoma City’s federal building, has this to say: “Ican’t handle that word – I get tired of hearing it. Thefirst time someone asked me about closure was the dayafter Julie’s burial. The day after! I was still in hell then.In a way, I still am. How can there ever be closure? Apart of my heart is gone.”Alexis, a woman whose brother committed suicide,feels the same thirty years after the fact: “The pain isstill there, and I wonder how I could have prevented it.Was it something I said or did?” Sometimes no outwardgesture, no word of comfort or encouragement, nohappy memory can erase the guilt a person feels.In short, there is no “answer” to the riddle of grief.But there is such a thing as community, and theknowledge of those who have experienced its blessingsthat even if one person, alone, cannot hold up underthe crushing weight of loss, the heaviest burden can belifted, or at least lightened when it is shared.And for those who are open to it, there is the comfortof knowing that while God may not shield us fromhardship and pain, he has promised that he is close toall those who grieve. As Psalm 34 puts it, “The Lord is1