No One Dies Alone Because God Shows Up

Grief doesn’t follow rules, and it rarely shows up quietly. We open a  conversation about the last moments of life—what we witness in hospice rooms, what we fear in sudden or violent deaths, and the heavy shadow of suicide—and we offer an audacious hope: that God meets every soul at the threshold. Not as an abstract idea, but as a presence that brings a softening, a peace that settles over the body and face, a love that refuses to arrive late.

From years of bedside chaplaincy, we share patterns that return like tide: tension easing as life slips, a quiet that feels almost like being held. We explore how this witness can comfort families who were not in the room, and how it speaks to losses that feel unanswerable. The conversation moves into the raw terrain of suicide grief—where guilt often dominates and understanding feels out of reach—and gently reframes the final moment as encounter rather than abandonment. We do not minimize pain or gloss over the mystery of a broken soul; we simply insist that love keeps vigil even when we cannot.

To anchor the heart, we read Psalm 93 in a luminous translation, letting its language about steadfastness, lifted rivers, and an unshakable house steady our breath. Along the way we offer simple practices: imagine your loved one received; light a candle at dusk; pause for a line of prayer; let community hold what you cannot carry alone. Whether your loss came through illness, accident, fire, or the silence of despair, you are not alone here. Come sit with us in a circle of gentle presence, where mourning can turn toward comfort and memory can be held without fear.

If this spoke to you, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a soft word today, and leave a review so others can find their way to this space. New reflections arrive every Friday on Apple Music, Amazon Music and Spotify. 

If you have questions about spiritual direction while grieving, or grief support or grief groups in your community, my contact information is in the show notes.

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION WHILE GRIEVING IS AVAILABLE

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Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome To Solace And Purpose
• 0:39 Creating Sacred Space For Grief
• 1:51 Hospice Moments And Peace At Death
• 3:17 God’s Presence In Every Passing
• 4:56 Wrestling With Suicide And Guilt
• 6:53 Broken Souls And Final Comfort
• 8:13 Psalm 93 Reading And Reflection
• 8:55 Closing, Support, And Next Steps

Transcript

Candee: 0:00

Welcome to Solace: Soul+ Grief. My name is Candee Lucas. The death of a loved one is a huge life transition, so we want to offer you this place to grieve and find where God's moving in your life as you grieve. Each week we take a new scripture or reflection and seek to find a quiet place in our hearts together to contemplate our losses, honor our loved ones, remember God's place in our hearts, and seek to make a continuing connection with those we've lost. We want to find that space where God is moving with us in our grief. That space where mourning can be transformed to comfort, a place where our hearts might be reopened and begin to mend, a place where tears can flow. This is a space that we hope solace will begin to fill for you. Join us if you just want to spend more time having God move with you in your grief. You are always welcome here in our circle of healing, love, and support.

Candee: 1:51

I thought for a moment, and since this was a casual conversation, I told her my idea of death had rather evolved over time, especially as I'd spent more time with people dying in hospice. I'd found that no matter how stressed people were leading up to their death. That at that very moment, at the very moment when they died, peace came over their faces, peace came over their bodies. There was a lovely sense of embrace, as it were. And so I told the story about how many times I sat with people who've lost loved ones and weren't able to be in the room with them for some reason, and especially with people who'd taken their own life in a somewhat lonely setting. And that my belief was, my theology is, that God receives us as he accompanies us all our lives. He's there at the very end, no matter how it comes, whether it be a car crash or the end of cancer or something more horrible, a fire.

Candee: 3:17

I was using that as an illustration, the Australian fires from a year or so ago, when so many animals were killed, and I mentioned that I thought about that time and how each animal was accompanied by God in their death, and thought about this mad idea of Jesus running around, holding each animal as it died, and how busy he must have been in that fire. It's true that that idea of God being with you when you die gives comfort to me, but I've also found over the years that it gives comfort to others.

Candee: 4:06

I remember speaking with a man who'd lost his brother to suicide and how none of them saw it coming. The family was so bereft and so upset that he'd done this and that no one had understood the depths of their brother's pain. But I told him about my idea of Jesus being there with him, being there with his brother, there to receive him with love, no matter if his brother's last thoughts were of great pain or loss or aloneness. God was there. God received him. God held him in that last moment. I've never seen or experienced a death when that wasn't true. So there's no reason to believe it isn't true in a violent or unexpected death, even under the most horrible of circumstances. Since the pandemic, we've all had and experienced, all of us, more suicides. This idea is so foreign to most of us that we can't even wrap our heads around it, understand how people can be at the depths and so alone and have no one to reach out to. And if we are survivors, our first emotion is guilt. We cannot really experience the darkness of those who take their own lives. We cannot know what the last straw was, or even what the first draw was. Our problem is we try to understand it, and it is beyond most people's comprehension. You listen to psychologists and they throw out various labels and diagnoses, but all I hear when I hear about this is how broken that person's soul must have been. And it just breaks my heart that there's no way for people to illustrate that, for them to reach out and say, I am broken. My soul is so broken, and nothing gives me comfort. That's why I believe in those last moments they do find comfort. They do find love and caring and complete acceptance in God's arms.

Candee: 6:48

This reading is Psalm 93 from a book called Opening to You, which is then inspired translations of the Psalms by Norman Fisher.

Candee: 7:07

--You are sovereign, clothed with goodness, dressed in strength, and so the world is firmly established and it cannot be moved. You, addressed by the world's voice, are firmly established from the first and before and after the first. The rivers have been lifted, the rivers cries, the river's shouts have been lifted, the rivers have lifted their dark waves, but more than the thunder of the waters, more than the thumping of the seas is you. Your witnessing is steadfast. Your house is ever whole, even past the end of time.--

Candee: 8:01

That brings to a close another episode. A new one drops every Friday and is available on Amazon Music Spotify. I am Candee Lucas, a spiritual director and chaplain. You can reach us at the email or phone number in the show notes, or reach out to us for a one-on-one spiritual direction, either individually or as a family as you travel through grief. Stay safe, be gentle with yourself, and travel with God.