Last updated on January 19, 2023
Restore our fortunes, Lord , like watercourses in the Negev. Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy. Though one goes along weeping, carrying the bag of seed, he will surely come back with shouts of joy, carrying his sheaves.
Psalms 126:4-6 CSB
Grief. I’m swimming in a sea of it these days.
Globally, we are all living in a modern age of isolation in which graduations, proms, and weddings are postponed or canceled, paychecks are dwindling or going away, and video screens have become a not-quite-good-enough substitute for the touch we need from loved ones. People we know are sick and alone. Many are dying from a virus that we scramble to fight against. We are weary. I hurt for our world, nation, and neighborhoods, even while I shelter in place and sow seeds of encouragement on the internet with my words.
Locally to me, in Chattanooga, TN, our community also grieves the terrible loss and destruction left by an EF3 tornado that ran along the ground for twenty miles in the middle of the night on Easter Sunday. In fifteen minutes, the tornado ripped homes and businesses from their foundations, split and uprooted miles of mature trees, and took the lives of or injured our citizens. Power was out for many days. Food is lost. Families are still living in local hotels and other temporary housing while they work with insurance and receive emergency aid.
A friend of mine, with whom I love to share gardening stories and ask for growing advice, lost her entire backyard. She’s not planting a garden this year. Another friend sheltered in her basement with her family, including five young children, as their home, their toys, their safe place, crashed to pieces around them.
It will be months before all the debris is collected and cleared, houses rebuilt (for those that can), and a new normal is established. I hurt for them, even while I sow seeds doing what I can to serve them practically.
In my close inner circle of relationships, my sister and dad had to put their beloved dog to sleep last week. He was my sister’s best friend and comfort in some very difficult times in her adult life. They are missing the sound of his paws on the kitchen tile. The booming barks at the front door. The oxytocin-inducing comfort of snuggling up next to his warm fur after a particularly challenging day at work. Dad’s buddy for watching his TV shows no longer curls up on the floor next to him.
Though it was time, and it was a wise choice to let him go, the grief remains. I hurt for my sister and for Dad, even while I sow seeds of remembering the good times with their good boy.
So much grief. It’s amazing that there are still tears available to shed. It’s amazing that there are more things to grieve as the days go on. Yet this is the season in which we live. Communal grief. What a strange time.
It brings up some difficult questions, I think. One that I have contemplated is this: if God loves us, why did he, in his creative wisdom, give us so painful of a response to loss?
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.
Genesis 1:26-27 CSB
In the creation account in Genesis, it is recorded that God created man(kind) in his own image. We are reflections of him. And we feel the same emotions he can feel. He wanted us to be able to understand his heart. If our losses pain us, it is because they pain God first. He loves us that much, and he wants us to know.
Here’s an interesting thought. If God is good, which I believe he is, and he experiences grief, then, perhaps, grief has some good for us even as it engulfs us in its raging sea.
While we were given the ability to experience grief, death and loss were never supposed to be part of our story as humanity. We chose the knowledge of evil when our ancestors took the fruit of knowledge against God’s wishes.
The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Genesis 3:6-7 CSB
And though God took that choice and made good out of it, the knowledge of evil remains, which comes with loss and its resulting grief.
For with much wisdom is much sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases.
Ecclesiastes 1:18 CSB
So how to we do this, Friend, this communal grieving? How do we recognize the loss and the pain for what it is and what it tells us about this experience of life? About God? How do we move through it in wholeness and faith? How do we find the good in grief?
Keep Perspective
Little in this world is permanent. Our life is a vapor that moves, changes, and dissipates just as steam in the air. Though the little blip of time we occupy is still full of richness and value, we don’t own it. We don’t control it. James, the patriarch of the Jerusalem Church, had this to say:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring – what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes.
James 4:13-14 CSB
In sorrow and grief, the troubles of life can seem much bigger and more catastrophic than they really are in view of our entire lifetimes and that of God’s story. A friend of mine uses the phrase “eyes up” to remind her to look to God and not to dwell unhealthily on circumstances. He is the one in control.
We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 CSB
Love Intentionally
We love deeply, sometimes good things and sometimes bad things. It’s important to pay attention to what we are loving and adjust accordingly.
No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Matthew 6:24 CSB
Loss can be a great opportunity to evaluate what we grieve and why. God blesses people with homes and jobs and relationships and other such gifts. But when our love for those things becomes stronger than our love for God, we have ventured into dangerous territory. A loss can open our eyes to what we’ve loved too much.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is, Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.
Mark 12:30-31 CSB
Then, we love our neighbor. Love is intended to be given away, not hoarded for ourselves. God gives us enough love for our own needs and then challenges us to give the overflow of that love out to others through action.
I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:34-35 CSB
If we have been loved by Jesus (and, oh, we certainly have!), we are commanded to love others in the same way. Compassionately, generously, in wisdom and strength and self-control, always with a mind to the well-being of the other’s soul just as much as to our own.
Let love be without hypocrisy. Detest evil; cling to what is good. Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Outdo one another in showing honor.
Romans 12:9-10 CSB
And as we step into the lives of others, as we are grieving together, we cling to what is good. We pursue them in love with integrity and purity of heart, deeply loving those brothers and sisters of mankind around us, seeking to show them honor and dignity. Because Jesus has shown and given that to us. How could we not extend it to others? Especially those who are at such a loss right now.
Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 CSB
In our own grief, we can continue to sow seeds of love in the lives of those around us, to give them a space to be vulnerable and to feel and know the love we have for them so they can grow in greater understanding of the love the Father has for them.
Embrace Vulnerability
Dr Brené Brown, the leading expert on vulnerability research, defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure…[it] is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity.”
(source, p33)
If we are to embrace love, we must embrace vulnerability. When we came to saving faith in Jesus, it is because we knew our vulnerabilities, at least to some degree. It is how his love was able to enter us and transform our hearts. Vulnerability is a key part of a whole life. When we find the “not enough” places within ourselves and own them, God takes that humility and does great things. Though we may weep when we meet this truth, confessing our hurt, our needs, and our insufficiency is where we encounter the glory of God.
Grief is most certainly a crucible for encountering vulnerability. Embrace it. Let it do its work. When the sorrow is so great, the disaster so terrible that we can’t even find the words, remember we are not alone in our vulnerabilities. We have a Helper.
In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings.
Romans 8:26 CSB
The Apostle Paul understood the good of embracing vulnerability and the way it makes room for the power of Christ to do its work. He had a particular issue that he asked the Lord multiple times to take away.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 CSB
We need each other to get through loss well. We need help to embrace vulnerability. We need relationships in which we can be our raw selves and still be loved.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.
James 5:16 CSB
Pursue those types of relationships and be that relationship for others.
Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer. Share with the saints in their needs; pursue hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.
Romans 12:12-15 CSB
Lament
Loss and pain are real and we cannot ignore them because they are uncomfortable. It will damage our spirits. Instead, we must move through them and let the feelings be what they are. Praise God that he is able to bear our feelings, whatever they are, even if they are at him. And he gives us hope. This world is hard. This life in the fallen place is hard. But he has conquered it.
I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.
John 16:33 CSB
The people of the scriptures felt feelings and expressed them to God. (Check out Psalm 22.) We can, too. He listens, he cares. He sits with us. He allows what must be to be and works good in the midst of it. Lament reminds us that though evil is so present in this world, God is greater. It can never overpower him. And as his people, it can never completely overpower us because his power dwells with us in his Spirit.
We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18 CSB
I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit,
Ephesians 3:16 CSB
…because our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full assurance.
1 Thessalonians 1:5a CSB
Stay Alert
In all we go through in this life, we have an ever-present adversary. When we are at our most vulnerable he is waiting for the opportune moment. He will steal our joy and hope and that of others if we let him. But even in our vulnerabilities, we resist his attacks by the firm foundation of inner belief lived out in action.
Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.
1 Peter 5:8-9 CSB
Peace Be With You
This is all a lot going on inside and outside of us at the same time. Conflicting feelings and thoughts and necessary actions that crash within like a raging sea. As we battle to keep our heads above water, remember who is always with us and the peace he gives.
Keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.
Hebrews 13:5 CSB
Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.
John 14:27 CSB
The peace Jesus gives is not the false comfort of the world, the lack of tempest in life. No, it is a peace, a wholeness, that can come only from the one who loves us completely, no matter how we show up each day, and the one who sits in authority over all.
Press On In Faith
He gives us work to do, even in the midst of grief. Not to ignore the grief or distract from the grief, although sometimes it does provide that blessed reprieve from the thoughts of sorrow that plague our minds and make our chest cavities ache with sadness and overwhelm.
The title of this post comes from the passage I placed at the beginning. Those words from the Psalms spoke to my soul as I read them in one of my daily reading plans. They give such a beautifully true visual of what it is to press on in faith during sorrow. Even while we long for restoration, we move forward in faith, sowing seeds of love into the fertile soil of the souls of others (and our own), the ground muddied by our falling tears as we go from one to the next.
Restore our fortunes, Lord , like watercourses in the Negev. Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy. Though one goes along weeping, carrying the bag of seed, he will surely come back with shouts of joy, carrying his sheaves.
Psalms 126:4-6 CSB
We can keep going, keep sowing, because we know there is cause for hope on the horizon.
Remember Hope
Grief doesn’t last forever. Let me leave us with hope today, even while we continue to move through our grief, each of us in our own time and in our own way. One day, it will all be made right again and this sinking, sucking sorrow will be gone forever.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
Revelation 21:4 CSB
Praise be to God.
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