Whatever your religious position is, it should be a comfort and strength to you during your bereavement. It is something you can nurture and it can lead you into a social and support network.
Having a belief in God or a faith in a religion may help you through bereavement but it certainly will not take away all of the pain. Indeed, having a belief may even cause complications: friends and family may assume your religion sustains you through difficult times; they may share your religion and feel that the person has gone to a better place; they may even celebrate this. But your religion cannot fill the gap in your life created by the death; it cannot take away the shock or the loneliness.
Perhaps the death creates doubts in your mind – why would God do this to me? Of course these thoughts are counter intuitive: if your faith has been built on logical consideration while witnessing all that goes on in the world you can’t really change this just when the chips are down on your side. Either God exists and the universe is unfolding under his command or he doesn’t – our personal ups and downs do not really change this.
READ MOREEveryone in England lives in a Church of England parish, and is entitled to use the services of a local parish priest at a funeral. You can also ask to have the funeral in the parish church.
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