Healing From Grief With the PsalmsSýnishorn

“I want a divorce.”

“She didn’t make it.”

“We’re letting you go.”

These phrases, and others like them, often trigger the beginning of an experience of grief. Something you didn’t see coming led you to a place you never planned to be.

As a pastor, I see grief hit people like a wave that so many try to avoid. They run from the pain and loss. Terry Wardle, an author and mentor to pastors, once wrote, “Ministry is a series of ungrieved losses.” But grief doesn’t discriminate based on our titles. Life is truly a series of ungrieved losses if we run from intense emotions like grief. However, in many cultures (including the American culture I call home), grief is avoided, misunderstood, and ignored.

I spent years letting my losses stack up. Not realizing how much I had endured and how much I was hurting, I ended up in the ER with a blood pressure of 199/120, and as my anxiety waned and my BP lowered, it became apparent that I had some work to do.

That event led me to discover two things. One, I had been running from grief. Two, grief is the ground where an encounter with God can happen. My second discovery is reflected in the Psalms.

Psalm 23 is a familiar passage. However, Psalm 22 is somewhat unknown. It was originally used at funeral processions in Hebrew culture. From the first verse, it has a very different tone than Psalm 23.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.”

Grief often creates an intense longing to be near God. When God seems distant, the sense of isolation can become overwhelming. David longs for God to not be far; he yearns for God to be near him. David isn’t asking for God to solve his problems, but to be with him in the midst of his problems.

It’s this very cry of yearning and a sense of being forsaken that Jesus quotes on the cross. The words “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” that we read in Psalm 22 are later quoted by Jesus in Matthew 27.

I hope you realize that Jesus knows grief just as much as you do. In Isaiah 53, the prophet speaks of how Jesus would be well-acquainted with grief. In John 11, we read about Jesus weeping at the death of Lazarus. Later, Jesus grieves during His arrival in Jerusalem because the people resisted His presence and the salvation He offered them.

If you’re reading a plan about grief, I’m going to guess that you are in a tough season, perhaps a brutal time of grief.

My former pastor Jason once told me, “Scott, peace is not the absence of trouble but the presence of Christ with us in the trouble.”

I wanted a life where I could get to a place of peace that included an end to trouble, pain, and grief. But, as my pastor reminded me, that wasn’t the experience of Jesus. It’s hard to swallow, but there is no way through life without experiencing grief.

That’s the difficult news. The good news is that we have a God who is well-acquainted with grief. He hears us when we cry to Him. And He draws near to us when we are in pain. Our grief can drive us away from Him or our grief can drive us to Him.

Tomorrow, I’m going to show you how David draws near to God in Psalm 22 and how he navigates difficult emotions without embracing the lies our Enemy whispers to us during grief.