Sadness and GriefSample

Day 1 

You’re mourning. It may be that you’ve lost someone you loved. You can point to a specific reason for your grief, locate a point in time when it happened. 

Or perhaps your sadness is not as clear as that. Maybe you’re struggling with a hopelessness that won’t go away. When you experience or observe the world, everything seems bleak. 

No two people express their sadness in exactly the same way. It can show up disguised as anger or an eating disorder, an obsession with work or a habit of binge-watching. But whether you just slammed the door on your parent, or you found yourself crying as you drove home from work—God’s Word offers you hope for your unique situation.

Do you think God’s ability and willingness to help is just a fairy tale? Have you given up waiting for God to help you? Are you angry at God because he could have arranged your life differently, but didn’t?

Bring your doubts and your questions to God. Open his Word and find others expressing the same questions and doubts there. In this reading plan, you’ll also discover God’s promises for you. 
Jesus asked a man who had been an invalid for almost four decades, “Do you want to be healed?” He’s asking you the same question now. “Do you want to be healed?” Tell him your answer.

Pray

Heavenly Father, please bring me healing—even joy—through your Word.

Read

David is weak, afraid, sorrowful. He cries out to God for help.

Psalm 86:1-5

Reflect

Have you ever laid it all out to someone? It can be hard to be completely honest about how we feel. Maybe we suspect that people are tired of hearing us, or that they won’t understand. Sometimes, the hardest person to be honest with is God. But David doesn’t shy away from baring it all before God. He lays out how desperate he is and asks God to fix his situation.

Respond

Has your sadness cut you off from other people or from God? God wants to hear from you—the most honest, vulnerable things you can say. Try voicing your sadness to God now. Read verse 5 of this Psalm aloud to him.

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