God, Where Are You in Grief?

Today, this topic sits heavy on my chest.

I’ve heard so many stories of people who are walking through deep valleys of grief. This broken world continues to fracture, and the shape of our hearts wring and twist when we are struck by loss. Whether known or unexpected, the sting is still sharp

Grief.

Some of us are fresh with it.

For some of us, the immediacy has slowed, but our hearts stir with the waters of tears needing to be shed. Sometimes the reminders of who or what have gone take the breath right out of us.

Loss has long been a burden no one has wished to carry.

We grieve loss.

The loss of a loved one, the ones who reflected our hearts back to us.

The loss of a dream held so dear and close.

The loss of a relationship, one we believed and hoped would remain.

When we tumble down the reality of what is wrecking us, how do our hearts hold up?

How do we bring comfort to our friends and family in their hour of darkness? We want to have the right words, but words elude.

 

Grief,

an art one never

wants to master,

meets heavy

full of names, places,

cities that meant something.

Like a cool, silver thread

they merge as two rivers

into one large lake

of loss, a continent

content to be left unexplored.

But in this hour,

intent as I am with forgetting,

what I cannot accept

is the slow sinking image

of you, a gesture so small,

the curl of laughter

at the edge of your eye,

submerging under a deep blue

wave of farewell.

 

 

Sometimes, there is nothing to say that is strong enough to sustain a shattered heart. So we sit, and we sob, and we uncurl our hearts and sink to the depths, allow the wound to bleed.

And we remember: when there are no words, there is Immanuel.

A writer friend of mine, Kendra Broekhuis, shared this thought in one of her newsletters, about the pain that pushes so deeply that we cannot understand, cannot keep up.

But there God is, God with us. In the unshed tears, the tear stained pillows, the fog, the shadow, the breathless jolt of sorrow of remembering who or what has been left behind.

Here is our Immanuel:

He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. (Isaiah 53:3a)

The Man of suffering suffers with you, with us all. And He gives us comfort so we can be a comfort to others:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

-2 Corinthians 1:3-5

The God of compassion is with us, comforting us in all our troubles. May His compassion wrap around us where we need to breathe or need to grieve. May the God of comfort comfort you with an unexplainable knowing that He is near, He sees you, and will provide His presence in this season.