Have you ever experienced an overwhelming sense of God’s presence during grief?
Good evening everyone, I hope you're all having a great weekend.
I was thinking about a couple of experiences I had a while ago, once after my grandmother died and the other after a nasty car crash, and I’d be really interested to hear how other Reformed Christians would understand these situations.
At the time, I was already in quite a dark place mentally. I wasn’t exactly losing or doubting my faith, but I was struggling generally and had found myself wondering whether life was really worth it. (This isn't an X-factor story, don't worry)
When my grandmother died, I went to see her body. Whilst I was there, I suddenly had an incredibly strong feeling that there was something above me, almost watching over me. It’s difficult to put into words because I didn’t literally hear a voice, but the overwhelming sense I got was essentially:
“It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a feeling quite like it before, nor since.
I’m not claiming that I know this was the Holy Spirit, or even necessarily that it was supernatural. I know grief can have a lot of psychological effects, and I especially don’t want to interpret every unusual feeling I ever get as a message from God.
At the same time, as a Christian, I’ve always wondered whether it’s reasonable to understand what happened as the Holy Spirit comforting me, at a point when I particularly needed it.
Similarly, I was once in a fairly serious car crash (completely my inexperienced fault). After crashing onto a fairly busy dual carriageway, other than my car being a bit smashed up, I came off perfectly fine, just with a banged head. Once again, I can’t claim definitively that God miraculously intervened, but I’ve always wondered whether it would be reasonable to understand my survival as an example of God’s providential protection.
I come from a Reformed/evangelical Anglican perspective, although I’m open to continuationist or charismatic perspectives.
Have any of you experienced something comparable? And from a Reformed perspective, how would you distinguish between ordinary emotions during grief, God’s providence, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and something that someone might wrongly interpret as special revelation?
(If this question isn’t appropriate for this subreddit, please let me know and I’m happy to remove it.)