When someone dies physically, it’s not a single death; any future with them, the dreams we dreamed for them (or with them) die too.

In an instant, the past becomes the treasure of our future; so how do we handle the grief of death, while handling the priceless memories?

While working professionally in my clients homes, with their belongings, death is always a large piece of the conversation. Most of us have something (or lots of things) in our possession that came from someone we dearly loved, but are no longer here.

From furniture to jewelry, these special mementoes help us feel connected to the bigger story of a family, or a community. Sometimes these connections are healthy and positive, while other times they are truly harmful, even deadly. Remember, we are dealing not only with the physical things left behind, but the spirits attached to some of those things, as well.

Since handling the materials of the deceased is something we all do (or will do), I’ll give you a snap-shot of my experience with death and what’s left behind.

---

Death: We don’t get to choose when or how.

Jesus, days before He took a detour to the cross (that no one but Him expected), compared human death to a seed of wheat dying in the ground. It dies unto something . . . it’s not meaningless. It grows, reproduces, and flourishes. A harvest is sure to come.

It’s been just shy of 18 months since life took a turn I wasn’t expecting.

We’d been living in Los Angeles a short four months when Mom and Dad arrived from Minnesota to see our new place. In celebration of Father’s Day, I cooked-up Dad’s favorite (and mine too): Reuben sandwiches with root-beer floats.

We shopped for swim trunks, going back and forth with the playful aim of out-doing each other with the craziest prints, only to settle on navy blue. He would be off to the Dominican Republic in just a few days. Mom was thrilled to stay in SoCal with us (mainly the grand-girls), since he’d be keeping a fast-paced ministry schedule.

We prayed together, then sent him off—what a gift to hug and kiss all our goodbyes. He text me from the airport, called after arriving in DR, and gushed about God’s active hand of power and love with the team and the villagers.

Daddy died in his sleep early the next morning. He was 67.

The phone call that morning in June of 2021, unraveled our lives. As you may know from experience, death has a unique skill of tearing out the seams on well-stitched arrangements. Questions. . . unanswered. Plans. . . cancelled. Food. . . spoiled. Rose bushes. . . dead. Taking care of the family (and working with the Embassies to get Dad’s body home) took everything I had.

We survived those initial weeks thanks to the outpouring of support from the world over. Daddy was well loved, but I’m not supposed to be without him this early in life.

Beauty for ashes is no longer trite to me.

I used to hear God’s catchy Bible-promise to exchange beauty for ashes as a sweet little saying, perfect for plaques and sympathy cards. Now that I’ve felt the weight of human ashes in my hands, this phrase means something to me. It promises the supernatural, the miraculous. It’s a promise made by the person I cling to; and while I have seen His hands at work in unspeakable beauty over the last year and a half, I still wait expectantly for more.

I grieve, yet can’t fully grasp that I won’t see my dad for an unknowable amount of time. I know he’s got his favorite person face-to-face now, but my heart breaks for us, the ones still here in the longing place. The space where we still need faith to get through the unimaginable; to live without someone we can’t bare to lose.

Most days it’s still habit to picture him at his desk treasure-hunting in his Bible. I can see him sitting on the couch (next to mom in her chair), tall glass of milk in hand, eating cheese and crackers off a paper plate on his lap.

After living a flight away for so many years, I’ve wondered if it’s a luxury that I don’t listen for him to knock on my door for a pop-in, or expect him to be sitting at the kitchen table? I don’t know. Sometimes I think, absolutely; other times, I wonder if grief is prolonged because I’m not faced with the reality of his physical absence every day.

I’ve also wondered (and prodded friends) if the pain is less when the death isn’t sudden? From what I’ve heard, death of a loved one is painful no matter what, when or how. From babies dying in the womb, to favorite grandparents (and everyone loved in between), death causes suffering.

No one is exempt from the pain death brings. Whether we choose to engage, deny or medicate ourselves to cope is a choice we make for ourselves. The good news is, God has fresh new mercy for our particular case every single morning. We’ll never be turned away when we come to Him.

He has Fathered me and I’ve grown to know Him more deeply and intimately through this darkness. God will redeem every pain. . . even though I can’t see what’s ahead, He’s proven Himself to be strong, faithful and loving.

---

Memories: choosing which treasures to cherish.

If you’ve had the burden or the honor (depending on the experience) of handling the earthly goods of a deceased loved one, you know how emotionally taxing it can be.

Allow me to be blunt and practical here: If you want to avoid being the naive bug in the spider web, never keep things from the deceased if you don’t know what you are saying ‘yes’ to. Take time to personally know what you’re agreeing to keep, because you’re held accountable for your own agreements. So start with prayer. Let the Holy Spirit guide.

My aim is to help you make personal decisions about how you will honor your loved one’s memory while still honoring the Lord.

While grief and loss look differently to every child of God, remember our Father offers Himself, comfort personified, so that we don’t settle for the world’s comfort-counterfeits that isolate and lead us into idolatry.

He’s got the whole world…

Last year, I went through my dad’s earthly possessions and asked the Holy Spirit to direct me toward what would be a blessing. I ended up with just a hand-full of special things: a few small artifacts from his travels in the Middle East, books from his library, a journal he kept while getting his doctorate, some pretty rocks he’d collected.

A few times, desire to keep Dad intact hit me—a sudden need to ‘make sure he is known by his grandkids’ and ‘never forgotten’. But these are really big expectations, if you think about it. These goals were noble, but they came from a place of grief-panic.

In that moment, the Lord reminded me nothing is lost. Daddy is fully intact, complete and awaiting his own final resurrection day. God has him because the Father holds it all. The song is true: He’s got the whole world in His hands. . . from the itty-bitty babies to the grandpas and the grandmas, He’s got the whole world in His hands. What a hopeful song to sing and thought to meditate on.

I can more easily let go of my daddy (and his things) knowing he’s not lost, he’s held close. All the memories are safe in God. I don’t need to grab at all the things he built, wrote, photographed, or collected. Whatever God chooses for me is what I want. There were a couple things I took, then put back. There might be a few more I take in the future, but I can trust God to give me wisdom for what I need (when and if I need it).

This, believing God is good and will give us all we need, is one of the fights of faith we encounter after a loss. Maybe we blame God for the sickness or death, or perhaps we’ve never known Him as a Father; whatever the case, when we doubt His goodness, we may look for ways to try and secure it for ourselves.

To hold and protect the memory of our loved ones, a common practice is shrine-building (setting up physical locations in the home to put favorite possessions, to grieve, and to honor the ones we loved and lost ). But in my experience, shrines are the world’s way, not God’s way to get what we need; they are a comfort-counterfeit. More than a place to encounter our feelings and memories, we need an encounter with the living God.

Build an altar, not a shrine.

Shrines welcome and invite grief, remembrance, and thought streams that keep us anchored to memories of the past. You might be thinking, “So? What’s wrong with that? Isn’t that the point?” Yes, but what we don’t see, can hurt us.

Not all grief, sadness, memories, or tears are from God. I’ve heard, “there is no right or wrong way to grieve”, but I know I’ve experienced grief over losing my dad both in God’s presence and outside of it, and they are VERY different. After a heavy loss, we are vulnerable. It can be a sweet time when God shows us His tenderness, or we come under attack unable to recognize the enemy because we invite any form of grief.

Remember this spiritual enemy (called the father of lies), comes at us to steal, kill, and destroy. Shrines are areas he can gain access to our emotions and memories, feeding us lies, ideas, and depressed thoughts of self-pity, victimhood, hopelessness, self-harm and even suicide, all contrary to God’s truth over our lives.

At an altar, we can lay it all down and submit to God’s ideas. We encounter Jesus personally and bask in the comfort of His presence. God is not against mourning, but He has a different use for it than our enemy. He has hope for us. . . ways He plans to redeem our pain.

At a shrine we decide what is valuable to treasure and remember; at an altar, God decides.

Whether physical or imagined, altars are where we sacrifice–where our mourning and ashes can be transformed. Practically, it is where we offer our possessions, finances, ideas, dreams and physical bodies to God to use as He chooses. What we place on them is purified by God’s fire. As a positive practice, put everything you bring into your home on the altar.

Some things you don’t need to bring into your house — just destroy them.

DESTROY AND DON’T LOOK BACK.

Never keep items used in worship practices of other gods, religions, witchcraft, or the occult.

Things like:

This is not the full list, but we don’t need one. We have the Holy Spirit to guide us, a person to walk us through our own house and point out anything that’s causing harm.

Prolonged sickness, nightmares and night terrors (in both adults and children), headaches, constant distress, fear or anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts, obsessive memories and demonic (haunting) activity can have access through idolatry of this kind. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes and show you specifically what needs to be stopped or destroyed, then do it. Renounce any agreements or connections made with these things, then break off the curses attached to them, as it could be a generational or family curse.

If reading this is ringing your bell, there are lots of resources and models for praying through these things; find one you connect with. I recommend a man named Derek Prince on YouTube. His practical straight-to-the-point teaching, Biblical explanations and repeat-after-me-prayers make it simple to follow along. I’ve been so blessed by his ministry, even though he’s been gone a few years. This is one of the gifts of modern technology!

What if you are the one called to see with spiritual eyes, and partner with the Holy Spirit to put an end to generations of spiritual bondage? How exciting!

DONATE AND DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT.

Why keep items that have negative personal history for you? If something reminds you of abuse, pain, or trauma, why keep it?

We all have good and bad memories with loved ones. Yet, just like purchasing with guilt, obligation or compulsion (read about obligated-shopping here), we might be compelled to take items we don’t really want.

I was helping an elderly client downsize and move. Antique furniture was everywhere but it became evident, this was not her preferred style. When I finally got the story, it didn’t surprise me. An only child, she inherited the family antiques, though never loved them. She knew their worth because it was drilled into her from a young age and she was made to promise to be their keeper. She had lugged them through her own life in obligation to her deceased parents because of a vow she’d made.

She renounced the vow, released (forgave) her parents and herself, finally choosing to detach from their antique-collector identity. She had no idea furniture had the power to influence all aspects of her life, acting as an anchor that kept her from exploring her own identity, not to mention the precious square footage of her home! Furniture only had power because of the narrative she believed and committed to.

What’s occupying precious square footage, in your home, but also in your mind and heart? Life is too short to live a storyline outside of the one designed just for you.

This is where trusting the Holy Spirit’s guidance proves critical and priceless. Obedience and trust–even when we don’t understand–can save us years of hauling someone else’s luggage around like it’s ours. This is another opportunity to be the one to cut off old chains from the family history.

Guilt, convenience, or obligation are not reasons to take on a story-line God is not writing in your life.

CHOOSE TO KEEP WHAT CONNECTS TO GOD’S STORY.

These are the items you feel confident about. The treasures that bring smiles or wonder about the life of the person you miss, and blessing to your present life.

Of course there’s more to my grandpa than colorful bouncy balls, but it’s something I have of his that floods me with many colorful, wonderful, bright, and loving memories of him; these, I share with my girls. This narrative fits well with God’s story-line over me and my family.

Just like a picture is worth a thousand words, one green-light treasure can often mean more to us than a room-full of yellow-light objects. We can become overwhelmed when faced with what to hold on to, so pray for God to highlight the green-lights, objects that will bless you and cause you to remember the good things.

If you find you need guidance at the intersection–stuck wondering where to turn–please contact me. Video home-consulting is one of the services I offer, and I’d love to help you navigate the journey.

Treat this process of deciding how to honor their memory, while still honoring the Lord, with special care. The implications are bigger than you can imagine. You have been impacted by generations prior, and your decisions will affect the future.

Some tips:

Know your role. We all have a role to play, but not ALL the roles. You may be the spouse of the deceased or the daughter, like in my case. You may be the executor of the will or the friend of the family. Physical relation is easy to name, but when it comes to offering a hand, a shoulder, or your home, God will help you clarify the what, how and when. This will guard and protect your heart, keep you from judging and make room for others to be involved in the roles God has for them.

She told me, ”If no one wants the fine China, there’s no point keeping it around to collect dust”. She’s one of the wisest women I know.

We will all die, and we can soften the transition for our families. Make a plan for your material things and start the conversation.

Avoid probate; set up a living trust. My last tip was about the small things; this tip is about the big things: money and how you want to ‘do death’.

Figure out the details of your end-of-life before you’re gone (especially if you have large assets), or upon your death, family members will be sent an invitation to fight each other in the Colosseum where rules are a joke and it’s everyone for themselves.

Have all the fluff in life you desire, but plan for it for before you’re gone. It’s an act of love to have these conversations and map out your wishes before it’s too late.

---

When we walk through the grief of death, letting go of the last things we have of the person we loved seems reckless. But at the altar, our Father offers to take our burdens and pain in exchange for His goodness. What would it look like to trade-in what we can still see for what remains unseen? Believing there is beauty for ashes, this is faith.