Routed in Prayer: A Devotional for Those Starting New JobsНамуна

Day 9: The way things were

Express route

Grief is often an unexpected addition to change – and sometimes it can take us out completely. As you get used to the ‘new normal’ of working life, don’t forget to acknowledge and sit with your grief over what you miss. Psalm 137 gives us a good model not just for this but also for how to bring it to God in prayer.

Scenic Route

Read: Psalm 137 

Reflect: Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. Those are the five stages of the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle, and you’re probably feeling one or more of them right now… not necessarily about your new job, but about some situation in your life. 

Starting a new job brings with it all the excitement of newness, all the new information, new people, new commute, new structures and systems. It’s easy to get caught up in that for the first few days. But when things begin to settle down, and the ‘new normal’ kicks in, it’s likely that you’ll start missing the old normal – whether that’s university and lectures or old colleagues and work that you knew exactly how to do. Even the things you didn’t think you’d miss you may get the occasional twinge of nostalgia for. That’s normal – and completely okay. Even if it was the right time for you to move on, you’re still allowed to grieve what you’ve left behind and what has changed.  

Psalm 137 is a psalm of lament. The people have been exiled to Babylon, and their city – Jerusalem – has been destroyed. It is a resounding cry of their grief in a time of tumultuous transition, and it includes a lesson for us: it’s so much easier to deny our feelings and avoid expressing them to God than it is to recognise what we’re feeling, name it, and communicate it to our Father. 

But it’s an act of profound faith to entrust our greatest griefs to God, to trust that He sees, He knows, and He, the great comforter, will be close to us – in the newness, the nostalgia, and the next steps, as we learn to sing His song in a new context.

Pray: Spend some time praying through  a list of the things you miss about the life you’ve moved on from – even the small, seemingly insignificant things! Take the time to bring those griefs before God, acknowledging your feelings – crying and lamenting if you want – and then handing them over to Him. Pray a prayer of trust that He sees, He comforts, and He will one day wipe all tears from our eyes.