In seasons of grief and depression, we often discover within ourselves a strange compulsion to turn toward tasks. Folding laundry, paying bills, cleaning out drawers, finishing projects, crossing one more thing off the list, these small victories give us, for a fleeting moment, a sense of control, completion, and redemption of chaos. Where sorrow has stripped us bare of answers, where grief refuses to yield solutions, where depression presses with its heavy silence, tasks whisper, “Here is something you can conquer.” They distract us from what feels unbearable, granting us momentary relief. Yet beneath the surface of this task-orientation lies something more: a desperate attempt to impose order where our souls feel overcome by emptiness, helplessness, and the sheer unfixable weight of present troubles.

This compulsion reveals much about our hearts. It is not wrong to seek structure or find comfort in the work of our hands, God Himself gave Adam work before the fall, and simple tasks can be mercies that help us endure another day. But often in grief, our productivity masks avoidance. We would rather sweep floors or reorganize shelves than sit in stillness with our pain and our thoughts. Stillness feels unbearable, because to be still is to enter fully into the present moment and the present moment is painful, sorrowful, confusing, and filled with mystery. To be still is also to stop and pray fervently when no answers seem to be coming, when heaven feels silent, when God seems hidden. Tasks are often easier to deal with than our own tears. Work is safer than prayer. Order feels more secure than mystery.

And yet it is in this very stillness, the place we resist, where the treasures of darkness, joy and peace reside. Not joy in the circumstance, not peace in the situation, but joy and peace in Christ who is present in the moment. He Himself told us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27).

His peace is not found in tasks or distractions, but in the surrendered silence of being with Him. The tragedy is that so often we do not want to enter the moment to retrieve the treasures to be had. We prefer to avoid it altogether, thinking that if we keep moving, keep producing, keep managing, we can outrun the grief. But the valley cannot be outrun, it must be walked through. And in that valley, we are tested. Our faith is tried as we are asked to trust the unseen, to sit with unanswered questions, to believe God’s goodness when all earthly evidence feels otherwise.

The paradox is that in giving ourselves fully to tasks, we begin to see their meaninglessness. Projects once cherished lose their weight. Interests once pursued with energy feel hollow. The brevity of life stares us in the face, and what once seemed like accomplishment suddenly feels like vanity. “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Eccl. 1:2). Grief strips the shine from earthly pursuits, and we begin to perceive what we had ignored: that our days are numbered, our time is short, our achievements cannot secure us, and no amount of checkmarks can save us. It is here, if our hearts are not anchored in Christ, that despair and depression can deepen, for the futility of earthly tasks presses upon us without the hope of eternal purpose.

Grief, then, becomes a spiritual tutor. It exposes the fragile foundations upon which we often build our sense of worth and stability. It reminds us that control is an illusion, that human productivity has limits, and that our projects cannot remove our pain. The psalmist confesses, “When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul” (Ps. 94:19). God does not condemn us for folding laundry through tears or checking another item off the list in sorrow, but He will not allow these things to become our refuge and that is where we error, when we bury ourselves in work and run to fold laundry instead of running to Him. He will strip our tasks of their false promises so that we may turn to Him as our true comfort.

Ecclesiastes tells us that there is “a time to be born, and a time to die” (Eccl. 3:2), and everything in between is vapor, passing like breath in winter. Our projects are swallowed by time, our accomplishments forgotten in a generation, our busyness unable to shield us from sorrow. The Preacher’s honesty is unsettling but also strangely freeing. For in stripping us of illusions, he directs our eyes upward. If life “under the sun” is vanity, then life above the sun must be our only hope.

This is precisely what grief teaches us. When death interrupts our productivity, when sorrow drains our interest in earthly pursuits, when depression makes even our victories feel hollow, we are forced to reckon with the brevity and brokenness of life under the sun. And in that reckoning, our hearts groan for eternity and long for heaven. “He has put eternity into man’s heart” (Eccl. 3:11). We long for permanence, for meaning that is not erased by death, for joy that is not swallowed by grief, for a peace that cannot be undone by sorrow. These longings are not illusions, they are the fingerprints of God upon our souls, placed there to draw us beyond the vanity of this world and into the fullness of His promises.

Tasks, then, become both a mercy and a mirror. They are a mercy, for God uses them to sustain us in daily life, to help us endure grief one step at a time. But they are also a mirror, reflecting back to us the futility of our striving apart from Him. We complete them only to repeat them. We finish them only to see them undone. In grief, we become painfully aware that no matter how many lists we check off, death still comes, sorrow still lingers, and depression still presses. This awareness can lead us to despair, but only if we stop there. If instead we let the futility of tasks drive us to the eternal God, then despair becomes the doorway to hope.

In Christ, our labor is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58). What Ecclesiastes declared meaningless under the sun, the resurrection redeems in the light of eternity. Our tasks may not secure us, but our Savior does. Our projects may fade, but our faith endures. Our interests may grow dim, but our hope shines brighter. Grief strips us of self-sufficiency so that we might cling more tightly to the One who holds eternity in His hands. And in Him, even the smallest act of love, the quietest prayer, the most ordinary task, is gathered up into eternal significance.

So in the midst of grief, when tasks seem both necessary and meaningless, when productivity feels like both a refuge and a trap, we can rest in this: God is teaching us to lift our eyes above the sun. He is teaching us to long for eternity, where tears will be wiped away, sorrow will be no more, and our restless striving will finally give way to eternal rest in Him. Until then, we live in the tension, working with our hands while waiting with our hearts, grieving with sorrow but not without hope, enduring the vanity of life under the sun while clinging to the promise of life in the Son.