What "Front Row at the Funeral" Really Means...And What Hope in Jesus Looks Like in the Face of Life-Altering Grief

Front row at the funeral isn’t just a terrible place to sit for one day. It means a front row seat for all the rest of the awful for years to come. Front row to realize what shock, trauma, crippling anxiety, and more can do to ravage your physical body. Front row to be gutted on the inside while looking strong on the outside as you powerlessly witness your children navigating unimaginable pain. Front row to see people’s disappointment when they realize the old you died that day too and you can’t be who they want you to be anymore. Front row to judge yourself far too harshly because, would you be struggling this much if you were a “better Christian?”

But, in time, it is a front row seat to watch some other things unfold too, if you are fortunate…and paying attention. You get the best seat in the house to see who the most important people really are and watch what it looks like for them to change their own lives to make room for the upheaval that is now your life. To surround and protect you and your children and make sure you don’t face any of the dark days alone. To relentlessly remind you what the Word of God says when the enemy wants to see you hopeless.

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You sit front row to witness a new version of yourself begin to emerge. The one you resisted with every bit of stubbornness in you as you held onto the past with a death grip…until it became impossible to hold so tightly. So you had to loosen your grasp and begin looking to what comes next, even though you didn’t want to.

And, most of all, if you trust a faithful, loving God who never fails to fill you with His strength when you are at your weakest, that most important of all relationships will go deeper and further than it has ever gone. A God who can handle all your anger, confusion, hurt, and fear without judgment or condemnation because He, too, walked this earth and felt all those emotions. That's why we have “a high priest who understands our weaknesses” and have been urged to “draw boldly to the thrown of grace in our time of need.”
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​"Let us, therefore, draw boldly to the throne of our gracious God, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." -Hebrews 4:16

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​As human beings we often tend to create our own fictional timelines for healing and feel like failures when those unreasonable milestones aren't reached when we think they should be.

Thankfully, we do not serve a God who creates impossible benchmarks and timetables we were never meant to meet. Especially not without his grace flowing through us and doing the work we can't actually do for ourselves. If we are loved by a Heavenly Father who is "close to the brokenhearted", that has to mean He knows we will come to Him at some point completely broken. He draws near with compassion. He doesn't pull away in disappointment.

In this life it doesn’t get much worse than front row at the funeral. And, in the beginning, the same goes for front row to the life you never wanted. But that is not where this story ends. And on my best and worst days I will still choose to trust the Author and Finisher. He is faithful. And He is not finished.

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Amanda Drake Cromley is Mark and Linda’s youngest daughter. She is a homeschool mom of three and a digital coordinator and writer for Mark Drake International. On March 12th, 2024, Amanda’s husband, Aaron, died suddenly after playing in a weekly recreational soccer game. Life will never be the same. But the same God who welcomed a husband and father into Heaven that day is not done writing this family’s story. And He’s not done with yours either.