Death's Sting

 I find myself dreading Easter Sunday. The last two Easters have left my heart in the blender. The first year after Abigail died, four of the five songs on Easter Sunday contained the lyrics "O death, where is your sting?" in some form or fashion. I silently wept while keeping my mouth closed in protest. All the while my heart was screaming, "Here! It's right here! Can't you see?" 

It sits on this pew where my little daughter should be. Its heavy weight on my chest awakens me instead of her sweet body snuggled next to mine. It races in my mind as sleep eludes me each night. It runs in rivulets down my cheeks. Death's sting is in the deconstructed pink bunk beds she and her sister shared which are now stored away in the attic. It stares at me from an empty seat at a table for six. An empty Christmas stocking. A full closet. My family feels its sting each time we walk past her Sunday School classroom or watch her little friends play. Death's sting glares back at me from any photograph where she should be. It's what keeps me from scheduling any further family photography sessions. Death's sting is embedded in the pain of one big sister and two big brothers who ache for their baby sister. "Oh death, where is your sting?" I know where it is. It's marking a little grave by the lake. It's everywhere, so I'll not mock it , provoke it, or make light of it in a song. 

My assumption is most of these likely well intentioned lyrics are taken from 1 Corinthians 15:55 which states, "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" But I think what many forget is the preceding verse. "When (emphasis mine) the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?'" 

When. Then. This is a song I will one day sing. Not today. Not this side of Heaven. How I long for that day, but to be forced to sing such lyrics amid the lifelong grief of my child's death seems cruel and unnecessary. Because of Christ, I will one day sing those lyrics, and I imagine my daughter sings them now. But that's a song we cannot yet sing together. 

Death stung the very heart of God. It stings me too. 

I'll show up on Easter Sunday grateful for my Christ. But I will weep because death's sting requires I carry both gratitude and grief, hope and hurt, pain and peace. 

Abigail's empty chair: Feb 25, 2026