Grieving Our Hard Stories - a 6-Day Devotional on Living GriefSample

Our History Impacting Story

Jesus was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Long before He went to the cross, Jesus understood grief. Our Bibles tell us that Jesus was rejected, betrayed, unfriended, and unfollowed during His three years of ministry. And then, after living a perfect life of love, we see Him abandoned, assaulted, and killed. I can’t imagine the grief He endured.

His fully God, fully Man experience meant He knows about living grief. He understood hard stories and grief that didn’t quite fit into the typical grief box. He lived as we live, carried hard stories of loss, and understands the very human, very real experience of sorrow - even when no one has died.

We don’t need to hide our stories from Him. Just as we are, burdened and grieving. He gets it, and we don’t suffer alone. Whatever loss we face, He wants to help carry the weight of it.

Because God

How does your grief story read? What hard season of sorrow do you find yourself in? In reflecting back on these courageous women of the Bible, I wonder if they had any idea that their stories would ever be part of the healing journeys of other women hundreds of years later.

Did they know that their faith in a God Who sees, in a God Who is never off the case, would breathe healing and hope into our grief journeys? That their hard story would point us to the Healer and Redeemer?

It’s how God works, isn’t it? He is in the business of bringing beauty from the ashes. He steps into our hard stories and reminds us we aren’t alone in navigating the pivots and pain points. We don’t always know what He’s doing, but we know what He’s done. We know what He’s done in the lives of the women who needed Him then, and we can trust Him to do what He’s famous for in our lives today.

Redeem. Restore. Heal. And work all things together for the good of those who love Him. May you lean heavily on Him as you continue to heal. He is with you in your grief. And He doesn’t need it to fit into a certain box. It makes sense to Him, and that’s good enough.