Grief Bible Quotes

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge the more grief.

As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer's long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn't touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn't stop.

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. Unless, of course, you can literally believe all that stuff about family reunions 'on the further shore,' pictured in entirely earthly terms. But that is all unscriptural, all out of bad hymns and lithographs. There's not a word of it in the Bible. And it rings false. We know it couldn't be like that. Reality never repeats. The exact same thing is never taken away and given back. How well the Spiritualists bait their hook! 'Things on this side are not so different after all.' There are cigars in Heaven. For that is what we should all like. The happy past restored.

A vision of God high and lifted up reveals to me my sin and increases my love for him. Grief and love lead to genuine repentance, and I begin to be conformed to the image of the One I behold.

The soul, in its loneliness, hopes only for "salvation." And yet what is the burden of the Bible if not a sense of the mutuality of influence, rising out of an essential unity, among soul and body and community and world? These are all the works of God, and it is therefore the work of virtue to make or restore harmony among them. The world is certainly thought of as a place of spiritual trial, but it is also the confluence of soul and body, word and flesh, where thoughts must become deeds, where goodness must be enacted. This is the great meeting place, the narrow passage where spirit and flesh, word and world, pass into each other. The Bible's aim, as I read it, is not the freeing of the spirit from the world. It is the handbook of their interaction. It says that they cannot be divided; that their mutuality, their unity, is inescapable; that they are not reconciled in division, but in harmony. What else can be meant by the resurrection of the body? The body should be "filled with light," perfected in understanding. And so everywhere there is the sense of consequence, fear and desire, grief and joy. What is desirable is repeatedly defined in the tensions of the sense of consequence.

The substance of grief is not imaginary. It's as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things it can kill.

Why do we feel guilty, even when we've done nothing to bring on illness or death--even when we've done everything possible to prevent it? Suffering feels like punishment, as cultural anthropologists observe; no doubt that's one reason why people still tell the story of Adam and Eve, which interprets suffering that way.

All my life I'd been a believing Christian. ... But that instant in the ER--the instant Annette [his wife] died--I seemed to feel my religious faith die, too. As I thought more about it in the bleak days and weeks that followed, I decided the Bible had gotten it exactly backward. Maybe God hadn't created us in His image; maybe we'd created god in our image.

Imagine living with a scream inside you and that scream is yours. Now imagine no one hears it. That is what grief is.

Natural grief is one thing, distrustful sadness is another, and there is a very great difference between longing for what you have lost and lamenting that you have lost it.

No man's advice can change you unless you speak to yourself. Bible school or seminars can't change you, going to church can't change you except you decide to change. Psalm 139:23 - 24

One bold message in the Book of Job is that you can say anything to God. Throw at him your grief, your anger, your doubt, your bitterness, your betrayal, your disappointment—he can absorb them all. As often as not, spiritual giants of the Bible are shown contending with God. They prefer to go away limping, like Jacob, rather than to shut God out. In this respect, the Bible prefigures a tenet of modern psychology: you can’t really deny your feelings or make them disappear, so you might as well express them. God can deal with every human response save one. He cannot abide the response I fall back on instinctively: an attempt to ignore him or treat him as though he does not exist. That response never once occurred to Job.

I have to ask myself how I can possibly expect to know Jesus as he would want to be known if my life remains unscathed by trouble and grief. How can I hope to grasp anything of God's heart for this broken planet if I never weep because its brokenness touches me and breaks my heart? How can I reflect his image if I never share in his sufferings? And how will any of us ever learn to treasure his hesed and grace if we never experience phases where these blessings seem absent?

Happy those whose mouth causes them no grief, those who are not stung by remorse for sin. Happy are those whose conscience does not reproach them, those who have not lost hope.

Lord, break the chains that hold me to myself; free me to be Your happy slave—that is, to be the happy foot washer of anyone today who needs his feet washed, his supper cooked, his faults overlooked, his work commended, his failure forgiven, his griefs consoled or his button sewed on. Let me not imagine that my love for You is very great if I am unwilling to do for a human being something very small.

So the Bible is not so sad in the end?’ ‘Yes, it is the saddest book in the world. We are asked to believe that God has played an infantile trick on us: he has made himself unobservable, as an eternal test of “faith”. What I read, though, is the story of a species cursed by gifts and delusions that it cannot understand. I read of exile, abandonment and the terrible grief of beings who have lost something real – not of a people being put to a childish test, but of those who have lost their guide and parent, friend and only governing instructor and are left to wander in the silent darkness for all eternity. Imagine. And that is why all religion is about absence. Because once, the gods were there. And that is why all poetry and music strike us with this awful longing for what once was ours – because it begins in regions of the brain where once the gods made themselves heard.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrow. -Isaiah 53: 4 (NASB)

A wise son makes a glad father, But a foolish son is the grief of his mother.

Proverbs 10:10   10 Whoever winks maliciously causes grief,        and a chattering fool comes to ruin.

I suppose, he was thinking, that we heard this tale of the Herzogs ten times a year. Sometimes Mama told it, sometimes he. So we had a great schooling in grief. I still know these cries of the soul. They lie in the breast, and in the throat. The mouth wants to open wide and let them out. But all these are antiquities -- yes, Jewish antiquities originating in the Bible, in a Biblical sense of personal experience and destiny. What happened during the War abolished Father Herzog's claim to exceptional suffering. We are on a more brutal standard now, a new terminal standard, indifferent to persons. Part of the program of human destruction into which the human spirit has poured itself with energy, even with joy. These personal histories, old tales from old times that may not be worth remembering. I remember. I must. But who else -- to whom can this matter? So many millions -- multitudes -- go down in terrible pain. And, at that, moral suffering is denied, these days. Personalities are good only for comic relief. But I am still a slave to Papa's pain. The way Father Herzog spoke of himself! That could make one laugh. His I had such dignity.

And so the explanation for why Agatha Christie is the most popular author in the history of the world. Her appeal is as wide and her dissemination as great as the Bible's, because she is a modern apostle, a female one--about time, after two thousand years of men blathering on. And this new apostle answers the same questions Jesus answered: What are we to do with death? Because murder mysteries are always resolved in the end, the mystery neatly dispelled. We must do the same with death in our lives: resolve it, give it meaning, put it into context however hard that might be.

At Abraham's burial, his two most prominent sons, rivals since before they were born, estranged since childhood, scions of rival nations, come together for the first time since they were rent apart nearly three-quarters of a century earlier. The text reports their union nearly without comment. "His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre, in the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites." But the meaning of this moment cannot be diminished. Abraham achieves in death what he could never achieve in life: a moment of reconciliation between his two sons, a peaceful, communal, side-by-side flicker of possibility in which they are not rivals, scions, warriors, adversaries, children, Jews, Christians, or Muslims. They are brothers. They are mourners. In a sense they are us, forever weeping for the loss of our common father, shuffling through our bitter memories, reclaiming our childlike expectations, laughing, sobbing, furious and full of dreams, wondering about our orphaned future, and demanding the answers we all crave to hear: What did you want from me, Father? What did you leave me with, Father? And what do I do now?

For now, the Simple Daily Practice means doing ONE thing every day. Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.

Lament can be defined as a loud cry, a howl, or a passionate expression of grief. However, in the Bible lament is more than sorrow or talking about sadness. It is more than walking through the stages of grief. Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.

Van Gogh's view of the world becomes a lamp that reveals corners of my heart that I didn't know were there- and all of this happens immediately, even though he died 88 years before I was born. So ask yourself this: Is The Starry Night infallible? The questions doesn't make sense. Though grammatically sound, it is a query with no meaning. I could just as easily ask "How much does a sunset weigh?" The beauty of The Starry Night isn't in it being fallible or infallible. It's a window into another person's soul. Let's try another question: Is The Starry Night true? If we're talking logic or math, this question is as nonsensical as the first. But if we ask with the perspective of an artist or philosopher, we might find that, yes, The Starry Night is very true- it tells us truths about the human experience. It's a testament to how grief feels and the numinous quality we often experience when we peer deeply into the night sky... It is somehow more true than facts- it resonates in some deeper chamber of the human heart. So let me ask you two more questions: Is the Bible infallible? Is it true?

In the Old Testament, a person in grief tore his robe and didn’t run out to Kohl’s to get a new one to go to church. Women cut their hair. Men shaved their beards. There was weeping and wailing. For a whole year, nobody expected you to look or be the way you were. How wonderful! But in our nutty society, the person who “keeps it together,” who’s “so brave,” and who “looks so great — you’d never know,” that’s who is applauded. Grief is not the opposite of faith. Mourning is not the opposite of hope. I believe that well-meaning Christians can try to hurry us out of our mourning because we make them uncomfortable. The Bible does not say to cheer up the bereaved, but rather to “mourn with those who mourn.” Christ does not say we grieve because we are deficient in faith, but rather, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted [not rushed]” (Matthew 5:4).

I began realizing it was okay to just sit with Him instead of always reading and journaling prayers or hustling off to the next bible study. It was okay to just be still. It was possible to find Him in the immense stillness, the hidden parts of my heart. He was always there in my hiddenness.

Lord, I pour out my heart before You regarding the things in my life that cause me grief. I lift my hands to You because I know You are my hope and Your compassion for me never fails. Heal me of all emotional pain, and use the sorrow I have suffered for good. I pray that in Your presence I will find total restoration.

Gen:6:6: And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. We know that a perfect being would never repent of any of his perfect actions, and would not grieve (since he could foresee and forestall any incident which would cause him grief). Other Bible writers agree with this: Num:23:19: God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Genesis says that God repented. Numbers says that God cannot repent. Is it possible to believe both of these statements? If not, then it is impossible to believe the Bible as a whole.

The world is not with us enough O taste and see the subway Bible poster said, meaning The Lord, meaning if anything all that lives to the imagination’s tongue, grief, mercy, language, tangerine, weather, to breathe them, bite, savor, chew, swallow, transform into our flesh our deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince, living in the orchard and being hungry, and plucking the fruit.

I am  d weary with my  e moaning;         every night I flood my bed with tears;         I drench my couch with my weeping. 7    My  f eye wastes away because of grief;         it grows weak because of all my foes.     8  g Depart from me, all you  h workers of evil,         for the LORD  i has heard the sound of my weeping. 9    The LORD has heard my  j plea;         the LORD accepts my prayer.

4I also could speak as you do, If your soul were in my soul’s place. I could heap up words against you, And bshake my ◊head at you; 5But I would strengthen you with my mouth, And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief. 6“Though I speak, my grief is not relieved; And if I remain silent, how am I eased? 7But now He has cworn me out; You dhave made desolate all my company. 8You have shriveled me up,

He enjoyed not being dead. Lying there, Kiowa admired Lieutenant Jimmy Cross's capacity for grief. He wanted to share the man's pain, he wanted to care as Jimmy Cross cared. And yet when he closed his eyes, all he could think was Boom-down, and all he could feel was the pleasure of having his boots off and the fog curling in around him and the damp soil and the Bible smells and the plush comfort of night.

The more you want to dig a hole and burry yourself in it, the more you need to run and be ALIVE and do things. The more you want to do nothing, the more you need to do something. The more you want to be selfish, just think about yourself and your own pain, the more you need to look outward and try to cheer other people up. Then you will find happiness for yourself, when you give yourself away in any way you can.

He is, after all, the author, eternal possessor, initiator, and giver of love. He cannot be destroyed or made less by unrequited love, but to disassociate Him from the pain and grief associated with love is to carve a convenient idol out of wood or stone bearing no resemblance to the God of the Bible. Within those pages, we find a God who cannot be changed by man but can be affected by man. His immutability does not deplete or delete His affections.

-Too often college Bible classes end up like this- With eager knife that oft has sliced At Gentile gloss, or Jewish fable, Before the crowd you lay the Christ Upon the lecture table. From bondage to the old beliefs You say our rescue must begin, But I want refuge from my griefs And saving from my sin. The strong, the easy and the glad Hang, blandly listening, on your word; But I am sick, and I am sad, And I want Thee, O Lord. (From Amy Carmichael's 1950 bio of Thomas Walker of Tinnevelly, India — poem written in about 1905 by Canon Ainger)

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand. Unless, of course, you can literally believe all that stuff about family reunions ‘on the further shore,’ pictured in entirely earthly terms. But that is all unscriptural, all out of bad hymns and lithographs. There’s not a word of it in the Bible. And it rings false. We know it couldn’t be like that. Reality never repeats. The exact same thing is never taken away and given back.

Fir, cedar, pines, oaks, and maples densely timbered this section. But it was the redwoods that never failed to fill him with awe. Their feathery-looking needles and reddish bark. The way they stretched up to incredible heights and the sheer magnitude of their circumferences. How long ago had God planted their seeds? Hundreds of years? Thousands? As he stood amongst those mighty giants, he realized the land wasn’t his at all. It was God’s. God had formed and planted the seeds. He’d tended the soil and caused it to rain. He’d needed no man. Least of all Joe. Yet over and over Joe had thought of this as his own. My land. My logging camp. My house. My woman. My everything. Picking up his ax, he returned to his work. But in his mind, he reviewed a list of men in the Bible who’d left everything they held dear for parts unknown. Abraham. Jacob. Joseph. Moses. Even a woman. Esther. In every case, their circumstances were much more severe than his. God hadn’t commanded Joe to leave his land, though he’d prayed for guidance. Fasted. Read his Bible. But God had remained silent. Joe simply assumed God was letting him choose. But no matter what he chose, none of it was really his. It was all God’s. And God was sharing it with him. So which did he want? Both. Like a spoiled child, he definitely wanted both. But if he could only have one, wouldn’t he still be a man blessed? Yes. And he’d praise God and thank Him. But that didn’t immediately make the grief shrivel up and blow away. Eyeing where he wanted the tree to fall, he adjusted his stance. I want Anna, Lord. I choose Anna. Yet as long as he lived, he’d always miss this land. He’d miss the Territory. He’d miss the logging. He’d miss his friends. The cypress began to pop and splinter. Jumping away, he braced his feet, threw back his head, and shouted with everything he had. “Timber-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!” The tree wavered, then crashed to the forest floor. Noise resounded through the copse. The ground shook. Debris flew. Before any of it settled, Joe fell to his knees, doubled over, and sobbed.

Does Jesus Care? In a fit of despondency, the psalmist once bemoaned, “No one cares for my soul” (Ps. 142:4). But in the next verse he turned his gloom into a prayer, declaring to God, “You are my refuge.” The word care occurs eighty-two times in the Bible, which frequently reminds us that when “the days are weary, the long nights dreary,” our Savior cares. Frank Graeff wrote “Does Jesus Care?” in 1901, and it was set to music by the noted conductor and composer, Dr. J. Lincoln Hall (born November 4, 1866), who later called it his most inspired piece of music. The form of the hymn is unusual. Each stanza asks questions about God’s care for us in various situations, and the chorus resounds with the bolstering answer: “Oh yes, He cares, I know He cares!” NOVEMBER 4 Does Jesus care when my heart is pained Too deeply for mirth or song, As the burdens press, and the cares distress And the way grows weary and long? Does Jesus care when I’ve tried and failed To resist some temptation strong; When for my deep grief there is no relief, Though my tears flow all the night long? Does Jesus care when I’ve said “good-bye” To the dearest on earth to me, And my sad heart aches till it nearly breaks, Is it aught to Him? Does He see? Oh yes, He cares, I know He cares, His heart is touched with my grief; When the days are weary, the long nights dreary, I know my Savior cares. . . . casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. – 1 Peter 5:7

In 2022, New York Times columnist Tish Harrison Warren decried a culture of divorcing for unhappiness, writing, “I want to normalize significant periods of confusion, exhaustion, grief and unfulfillment in marriage. There’s an older couple I know who are in their fifth decade of marriage. They are funny and kind and, by almost any standard, the picture of #relationshipgoals. Early on in our marriage they told us, ‘There are times in marriage when the Bible’s call to love your enemies and the call to love your spouse are the same call.’ ” Life is, of course, not easy, and no one is going to like their partner every day. But Warren’s column makes misery in marriage sound like a necessary evil of being partnered with a man. It’s not. I refuse to believe that it has to be that way. I have two dear friends who I have known for over twenty years; we fight sometimes and disagree. Between us we’ve had three divorces and four marriages and three children. Never once have they felt like the enemy to me. And if it is that way, if the experience of being with a man means I hate him for at least a third of our marriage and he hates me, too, I’d rather not have it. No, thank you. There is no benefit to that martyrdom. To me, columns like Warren’s sound like the mentality that enables hazing rituals and cults where they sacrifice one of their own every fortnight. I was miserable, so you should be, too. I do not want that curse. I want happiness.

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted. I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

Please don’t give me answers; though that is what I say, that is not what I long for in this chest of broken pieces. I do not want your sympathy, your pat Bible verses, or your lofty promises of prayer. No, I want something much more sinister than that. I ask you to suffer, to take my nails of my grief and drive them into yourself. I ask you to be silent, shut your mouth, and open your hands. Don’t say you understand. Just touch me. Will you hold my hand? Though it’s cold and bony, will you embrace me tightly? Can you wail as I wail, curse as I curse, pray as I pray? I don’t want to be fixed; I want to be known. I want your presence kneeling by my bed, feeling useless, powerless, helpless. Yes, for then, for then, you will understand a small part of me that few have had the courage to know.

In the land of Uz, there lived a man, righteous and God-fearing, and he had great wealth, so many camels, so many sheep and asses, and his children feasted, and he loved them very much and prayed for them. 'It may be that my sons have sinned in their feasting.' Now the devil came before the Lord together with the sons of God, and said to the Lord that he had gone up and down the earth and under the earth. 'And hast thou considered my servant Job?' God asked of him. And God boasted to the devil, pointing to his great and holy servant. And the devil laughed at God's words. 'Give him over to me and Thou wilt see that Thy servant will murmur against Thee and curse Thy name.' And God gave up the just man He loved so, to the devil. And the devil smote his children and his cattle and scattered his wealth, all of a sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven. And Job rent his mantel and fell down upon the ground and cried aloud, 'Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return into the earth; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever.' Fathers and teachers, forgive my tears now, for all my childhood rises up again before me, and I breathe now as I breathed then, with the breast of a little child of eight, and I feel as I did then, awe and wonder and gladness. The camels at that time caught my imagination, and Satan, who talked like that with God, and God who gave His servant up to destruction, and His servant crying out: 'Blessed be Thy name although Thou dost punish me,' and then the soft and sweet singing in the church: 'Let my prayer rise up before Thee,' and again incense from the priest's censer and the kneeling and the prayer. Ever since then - only yesterday I took it up - I've never been able to read that sacred tale without tears. And how much that is great, mysterious and unfathomable there is in it! Afterwards I heard the words of mockery and blame, proud words, 'How could God give up the most loved of His saints for the diversion of the devil, take from him his children, smite him with sore boils so that he cleansed the corruption from his sores with a pot-sherd - and for no object except to board to the devil! 'See what My saint can suffer for My Sake.' ' But the greatness of it lies just in the fact that it is a mystery - that the passing earthly show and the eternal verity are brought together in it. In the face of the earthly truth, the eternal truth is accomplished. The Creator, just as on the first days of creation He ended each day with praise: 'That is good that I have created,' looks upon Job and again praises His creation. And Job, praising the Lord, serves not only Him but all His creation for generations and generations, and for ever and ever, since for that he was ordained. Good heavens, what a book it is, and what lessons there are in it! What a book the Bible is, what a miracle, what strength is given with it to man! It is like a mold cast of the world and man and human nature, everything is there, and a law for everything for all the ages. And what mysteries are solved and revealed! God raises Job again, gives him wealth again. Many years pass by, and he has other children and loves them. But how could he love those new ones when those first children are no more, when he has lost them? Remembering them, how could he be fully happy with those new ones, however dear the new ones might be? But he could, he could. It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising such each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life - and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving!

So what do we do when we feel drained and empty? When no one understands our suffering and no one seems to care? When we feel discouraged and tired and unbearably lonely? Read the Bible and pray. Read the Bible even when it feels like eating cardboard. And pray even when it feels like talking to a wall. Does it sound simple? It is. Does it also sound exceedingly hard? It is that as well. But reading the Bible and praying is the only way I have ever found out of my grief. There are no shortcuts to healing. When I say read, I don’t mean just reading words for a specific amount of time. I mean meditating on them. Writing down what God is saying to me. Asking God to reveal himself to me. Believing God uses Scripture to teach and to comfort me. To teach me wonderful things in his law (Ps. 119:18). To comfort me with his promises (Ps. 119:76). Reading this way changes cardboard into manna. I echo Jeremiah who said, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” ( Jer. 15:16).

The most wonderful thing of all about the cross is that it reveals the love of God to us. It is not surprising that Paul should say to the Romans, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." How do we see the love of God in the cross? Ah, says the modern man, I see it in this way, that though man rejected and murdered the Son of God, God in His love still says, "All right, I still forgive you. Though you have done that to My Son, I still forgive you." Yes, that is part of it, but it is the smallest part of it. That is not the real love of God. God was not a passive spectator of the death of His Son. That is how the moderns put it - that God in heaven looked down upon it all, saw men killing His own Son, and said, "All right, I will still forgive you." But it was not we who brought God's Son to the cross. It was God. It was the predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge of God. If you really want to know what the love of God means, read what Paul wrote to the Romans: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." God condemned sin in the flesh of His own Son. This is the love of God. Read again Isaiah 53, that wonderful prophecy of what happened on Calvary's hill. You notice how he goes on repeating it: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows... it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." These are the terms. And they are nothing but a plain, factual description of what happened on the cross.

May God’s people never eat rabbit or pork (Lev. 11:6–7)? May a man never have sex with his wife during her monthly period (Lev. 18:19) or wear clothes woven of two kinds of materials (Lev. 19:19)? Should Christians never wear tattoos (Lev. 19:28)? Should those who blaspheme God’s name be stoned to death (Lev. 24:10–24)? Ought Christians to hate those who hate God (Ps. 139:21–22)? Ought believers to praise God with tambourines, cymbals, and dancing (Ps. 150:4–5)? Should Christians encourage the suffering and poor to drink beer and wine in order to forget their misery (Prov. 31:6–7)? Should parents punish their children with rods in order to save their souls from death (Prov. 23:13–14)? Does much wisdom really bring much sorrow and more knowledge more grief (Eccles. 1:18)? Will becoming highly righteous and wise destroy us (Eccles. 7:16)? Is everything really meaningless (Eccles. 12:8)? May Christians never swear oaths (Matt. 5:33–37)? Should we never call anyone on earth “father” (Matt. 23:9)? Should Christ’s followers wear sandals when they evangelize but bring no food or money or extra clothes (Mark 6:8–9)? Should Christians be exorcising demons, handling snakes, and drinking deadly poison (Mark 16:15–18)? Are people who divorce their spouses and remarry always committing adultery (Luke 16:18)? Ought Christians to share their material goods in common (Acts 2:44–45)? Ought church leaders to always meet in council to issue definitive decisions on matters in dispute (Acts 15:1–29)? Is homosexuality always a sin unworthy of the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9–10)? Should unmarried men not look for wives (1 Cor. 7:27) and married men live as if they had no wives (1 Cor. 7:29)? Is it wrong for men to cover their heads (1 Cor. 11:4) or a disgrace of nature for men to wear long hair (1 Cor. 11:14)? Should Christians save and collect money to send to believers in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1–4)? Should Christians definitely sing psalms in church (Col. 3:16)? Must Christians always lead quiet lives in which they work with their hands (1 Thess. 4:11)? If a person will not work, should they not be allowed to eat (2 Thess. 3:10)? Ought all Christian slaves always simply submit to their masters (reminder: slavery still exists today) (1 Pet. 2:18–21)? Must Christian women not wear braided hair, gold jewelry, and fine clothes (1 Tim. 2:9; 1 Pet. 3:3)? Ought all Christian men to lift up their hands when they pray (1 Tim. 2:8)? Should churches not provide material help to widows who are younger than sixty years old (1 Tim. 5:9)? Will every believer who lives a godly life in Christ be persecuted (2 Tim. 3:12)? Should the church anoint the sick with oil for their healing (James 5:14–15)? The list of such questions could be extended.

I gave humble and hearty thanks that God had been pleased to discover to me even that it was possible I might be more happy in this solitary condition, than I should have been in a liberty of society, and in all the pleasures of the world; that He could fully make up to me the deficiencies of my solitary state, and the want of human society, by His presence, and the communications of His grace to my soul, supporting, comforting, and encouraging me to depend upon His providence here, and hope for His eternal presence hereafter. It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this life I now led was, with all its miserable circumstances, than the wicked, cursed, abominable life I led all the past part of my days. And now I changed both my sorrows and my joys; my very desires altered, my affections changed their gusts, and my delights were perfectly new from what they were at my first coming, or indeed for the two years past. Before, as I walked about, either on my hunting, or for viewing the country, the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon me on a sudden, and my very heart would die within me, to think of the woods, the mountains, the deserts I was in, and how I was a prisoner, locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean, in an uninhabited wilderness, without redemption. In the midst of the greatest composures of my mind, this would break out upon me like a storm, and make me wring my hands, and weep like a child. Sometimes it would take me in the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit down and sigh, and look upon the ground for an hour or two together; and this was still worse to me, for if I could burst out into tears, or vent myself by words, it would go off, and the grief, having exhausted itself, would abate. But now I began to exercise myself with new thoughts. I daily read the Word of God, and applied all the comforts of it to my present state. One morning, being very sad, I opened the Bible upon these words, "I will never, never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Immediately it occurred that these words were to me; why else should they be directed in such a manner, just as the moment when I was mourning over my condition, as one forsaken of God and man? "Well, then," said I, "if God does not forsake me, of what ill consequence can it be, or what matters it, though the world should all forsake me, seeing on the other hand if I had all the world, and should lose the favor and blessing of God, there would be no comparison in the loss?" From that moment I began to conclude in my mind that it was possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken solitary condition, than it was probable I should ever have been in any other particular state in the world, and with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bringing me to this place.

Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.

Robert Askins Brings ‘Hand to God’ to Broadway Chad Batka for The New York Times Robert Askins at the Booth Theater, where his play “Hand to God” opens on Tuesday. By MICHAEL PAULSON The conceit is zany: In a church basement, a group of adolescents gathers (mostly at the insistence of their parents) to make puppets that will spread the Christian message, but one of the puppets turns out to be more demonic than divine. The result — a dark comedy with the can-puppets-really-do-that raunchiness of “Avenue Q” and can-people-really-say-that outrageousness of “The Book of Mormon” — is “Hand to God,” a new play that is among the more improbable entrants in the packed competition for Broadway audiences over the next few weeks. Given the irreverence of some of the material — at one point stuffed animals are mutilated in ways that replicate the torments of Catholic martyrs — it is perhaps not a surprise to discover that the play’s author, Robert Askins, was nicknamed “Dirty Rob” as an undergraduate at Baylor, a Baptist-affiliated university where the sexual explicitness and violence of his early scripts raised eyebrows. But Mr. Askins had also been a lone male soloist in the children’s choir at St. John Lutheran of Cypress, Tex. — a child who discovered early that singing was a way to make the stern church ladies smile. His earliest performances were in a deeply religious world, and his writings since then have been a complex reaction to that upbringing. “It’s kind of frustrating in life to be like, ‘I’m a playwright,’ and watch people’s face fall, because they associate plays with phenomenally dull, didactic, poetic grad-schoolery, where everything takes too long and tediously explores the beauty in ourselves,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s not church, even though it feels like church a lot when we go these days.” The journey to Broadway, where “Hand to God” opens on Tuesday at the Booth Theater, still seems unlikely to Mr. Askins, 34, who works as a bartender in Brooklyn and says he can’t afford to see Broadway shows, despite his newfound prominence. He seems simultaneously enthralled by and contemptuous of contemporary theater, the world in which he has chosen to make his life; during a walk from the Cobble Hill coffee shop where he sometimes writes to the Park Slope restaurant where he tends bar, he quoted Nietzsche and Derrida, described himself as “deeply weird,” and swore like, well, a satanic sock-puppet. “If there were no laughs in the show, I’d think there was something wrong with him,” said the actor Steven Boyer, who won raves in earlier “Hand to God” productions as Jason, a grief-stricken adolescent with a meek demeanor and an angry-puppet pal. “But anybody who is able to write about such serious stuff and be as hilarious as it is, I’m not worried about their mental health.” Mr. Askins’s interest in the performing arts began when he was a boy attending rural Texas churches affiliated with the conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod denomination; he recalls the worshipers as “deeply conservative, old farm folks, stone-faced, pride and suffering, and the only time anybody ever really livened up was when the children’s choir would perform.” “My grandmother had a cross-stitch that said, ‘God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing,’ and so I got into that,” he said. “For somebody who enjoys performance, that was the way in.” The church also had a puppet ministry — an effort to teach children about the Bible by use of puppets — and when Mr. Askins’s mother, a nurse, began running the program, he enlisted to help. He would perform shows for other children at preschools and vacation Bible camps. “The shows are wacky, but it was fun,” he said. “They’re badly written attempts to bring children to Jesus.” Not all of his formative encounters with puppets were positive. Particularly scarring: D

We don't just need help when the water is rising, or the sickness is prolonged, or the grief is fresh--we need help all the time. Our forgetfulness came with the fall, but the privilege of reminding one another of the gospel is ours until all that is temporary passes away.

Then he told another story. It’s for people who think they’re pure and look down on others: “A Pharisee and a tax collector were praying. The Pharisee stood and prayed: “Thank you I’m not like that tax collector. I always perform my religious duty.’ Far away the tax collector wouldn’t even look up to heaven. In grief he prayed: “Have mercy on me. I’m a sinner.” “Listen, God accepted him, not the Pharisee. Praise yourself and you’ll be humbled. Humble yourself and you’ll be honored.

Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.

I was learning that pain demanded to be felt—on its own terms and in its own timing. It wouldn’t be rushed. It wouldn’t be pushed away or minimized. There was no set timetable for grief. There were no Bible verses or life truths that could lessen pain’s grip. No matter how much I wanted to push it away or pretend it wasn’t there, there were no tricks or tips to relieve the agony.

For what profit comes to mortals from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which they toil under the sun? 23 Every day sorrow and grief are their occupation; even at night their hearts are not at rest.

Chesterton, conveying an evergreen truth in a language that now may strike us as awkward and archaic, asserts: “Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live.

When my prayers returned to me unanswered, I went about mourning as though for my friend or brother. I bowed my head in grief as though weeping for my mother. But when I stumbled, they gathered in glee; assailants gathered against me without my knowledge. They slandered me without ceasing. Like the ungodly they maliciously mocked;2 they gnashed their teeth at me. How long, Lord, will you look on? Rescue me from their ravages, my precious life from these lions. I will give you thanks in the great assembly; among the throngs I will praise you. Do not let those gloat over me who are my enemies without cause; do not let those who hate me without reason maliciously wink the eye. They do not speak peaceably, but devise false accusations against those who live quietly in the land. They sneer at me and say, “Aha! Aha! With our own eyes we have seen it.” LORD, you have seen this; do not be silent. Do not be far from me, Lord. Awake, and rise to my defense! Contend for me, my God and Lord. Vindicate me in your righteousness, LORD my God; do not let them gloat over me. Do not let them think, “Aha, just what we wanted!” or say, “We have swallowed him up.

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October 13 • Morning Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation. —2 Corinthians 7:10 (ESV) Genuine, spiritual mourning for sin is the work of the Spirit of God. Repentance is too excellent a flower to grow in nature’s garden. Pearls grow naturally in oysters, but repentance never shows itself in sinners unless divine grace works it in them. If you have one particle of real hatred for sin, God must have given it to you, for human nature’s thorn bushes have never produced a single fig. “Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh.” True repentance is linked directly to the Savior. When we repent of sin, we must have one eye on sin and another on the cross. Better still, it will focus both eyes on Christ and only see our transgressions in the light of his love. True sorrow for sin is extremely practical. No one may say they hate sin if they live in it. Repentance makes us see the evil of sin, not merely as a theory, but in reality—as a burned child dreads the fire. We will be just as afraid of it as someone who has been recently stopped and robbed is afraid of the thief on the street. We will avoid it—avoid it in everything—not only in big things, but in little things, as people avoid little vipers as well as big snakes. True grieving for sin will make us guard our tongue carefully, for fear that we should say a wrong word; we will be very watchful over our daily activities, just in case we might offend in anything. Each night we will close the day with painful confessions of shortcomings, and each morning we will awaken with anxious prayers that this day God would hold us up so that we may not sin against him. Sincere repentance is constant. Believers repent until their dying day. This pattern will not be sporadic. Every other sorrow lessens with time, but this costly sorrow grows with our growth. It is such a sweet bitter that we thank God we are allowed to enjoy and to tolerate it until we enter our eternal rest.

nod and stare down at the Bible in my hands, letting the gift of her words wash over me. My mother had carried so much pain from her own loss. Maybe the exact things Patricia said I had inside me: traumatic grief, PCBD grief. Then, after I was born, it became anxiety. Maybe she’d had the feeling like she could explode. Maybe she’d had my fear and fury. And she hid it from me as best she could.

Jesus is waiting for you to realize that the devastating pain of your story holds within its pages the perfect nouns and just the right verbs. And if you lay those nouns and verbs before Jesus, He will arrange them into a story so gloriously mind-boggling that you will be driven to give Him the whole of your story so that there is never a word that He is not in possession of.

11:33-37 John stresses that we have a God who cares. When Jesus saw the weeping and wailing, he too wept openly. Perhaps he empathized with their grief, or perhaps he was troubled at their unbelief. In either case, Jesus showed that he cares enough for us to weep with us in our sorrow. This portrait contrasts with the Greek concept of God that was popular in that day—a God with no emotions and no messy involvement with humans. Here we see many of Jesus’ emotions—compassion, indignation, sorrow, even frustration. He often expressed deep emotion, and we must never be afraid to reveal our true feelings to him. He understands them, for he experienced them. Be honest, and don’t try to hide anything from your Savior. He cares.

ECC1.18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

It’s a forgone conclusion that we’ll have grief on this earth. It’s also a forgone conclusion that Jesus will be with us throughout that grief. When he sees us in our pain he has compassion on us. He won’t necessarily raise our children from the dead, but he will look for opportunities to surprise us with his love and grace by easing our burdens, by carrying it for us.

Those that multiply gods multiply griefs to themselves; for, whoever thinks one God too little, will find two too many, and yet hundreds not enough.

8 ‡ Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?†” 9 ‡ Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the LORD’s house.† 10In her deep anguish† Hannah prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly. 11 ‡ And she made a vow,† saying, “LORD Almighty†, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember† me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life,† and no razor† will ever be used on his head.” 12As she kept on praying to the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. 13 ‡ Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.” 15 ‡ “Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled.† I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring† out my soul to the LORD. 16 ‡ Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”† 17Eli answered, “Go in peace,† and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.†” 18She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.†” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.† 19Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the LORD and then went back to their home at Ramah.† Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the LORD remembered† her. 20 ‡ So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son.† She named† him Samuel,[2]† saying, “Because I asked the LORD for him.

But You Yourself have seen trouble and grief, observing it in order to take the matter into Your hands.  The helpless entrusts himself to You; You are a helper of the fatherless. 

Grief turns us inward, but compassion turns us outward, and that’s what we need when grief threatens to crush us. The Bible says, “Carry each other’s burdens” [Galatians 6:2 NIV].

God of compassion, you suffer in the grief of your people, and you are present to heal and forgive. May the sun of your justice rise on every night of oppression, and may the warm rays of your healing love renew each troubled mind; for you are the God of salvation and new life, made known to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Grief and unhappiness are in their ways.

People who look as if they are supremely happy and carefree are full of some great grief and carry a tragedy within them. We put on a bold face very often, and sometimes it is exceptionally bold because of the acuteness of the problem that is within. So it follows that anyone who is truly Christian will never take people merely as they appear to be but will feel a great sense of sorrow for men and women who are trying vainly to find a quiet heart by refusing to think. This includes all the people who plunge into a round of pleasure, who give themselves to the cults and commit intellectual suicide, who rush away for treatment to some psychologist or other, who drug themselves or take up certain ancient Eastern religions. All are simply trying somehow or other to find this peace that ever seems to elude them, this quiet heart that never seems to become an actuality. But, of course, we do not stop at it negatively like that. We are concerned to give a positive exposition of what the Bible has to tell us about this vital and all-important subject, and I would remind you again that the Bible claims that it and it alone can really show us this quiet heart. I do not apologize for that. I state and assert it. We cannot mix the gospel of Jesus Christ with anything else; it is either this or nothing. No compromise is possible.

Surely he [Jesus] hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted (Isa 53:4). Notice the two words, “griefs” and “sorrows. The study reference, Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, gives an excellent definition of these two words. “Perhaps the proper difference between this word [sorrows] and the word translated griefs is, that this [sorrows] refers to pains of the mind, that [griefs] of the body; this to anguish, anxiety, or trouble of the soul; that to bodily infirmity and disease.” In the original Hebrew, the word “griefs” specifically means sickness of the body and “sorrows” refers to mental anguish. We see from this verse that Jesus in His death on the cross not only cleansed man of sin, but carried away sicknesses and mental anguish too. He bore all the lies and torments of the devil onto Himself so that we would not have to bear them.

Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

To my dear daughters, granddaughters, and all future brides, I thought it would be a wonderful tradition for each bride to write a little note and leave a legacy for those who come after her. How I wish my own mother had lived to see my wedding day and been present to share her wisdom! I make no pretense at being wise, but God is. The bible says we can ask for wisdom, and God will honor our request. As you consider marriage, first seek God's will and ask Him to direct your heart. Do not hasten to take your vows. Pause and reflect before you take such a momentous step, and be sure your mate honors God. A marriage is not just between a man and a woman--it is a holy union which must include the Lord to flourish. Ethan was God's gift to me. His patience, strength, and companionship were like a balm to my grief. We learned to work together and rely on one another until respect and affection sparked. Love came softly and grew in our hearts. How I thank God for bringing us together and blessing our union! Though hardships test us and extraordinary things thrill us, life is made up of mundane days. Love each other in the little, commonplace matters of life to strengthen your marriage, or it will wither from neglect. Appreciate what you have, and forgive as freely as you laugh. My darlings, my prayer is for you to make wise decisions of the heart--first in devoting your spirit to the Lord, then in giving your hand to a man. May each of you be blessed with a godly mate and know the joy of growing close together and growing old with him.

Your face was furrowed by the plow of grief, and blood flowed freely from Your thorn-crowned brow; such

Naomi's return caused no small stir. Scripture says, All the city was excited because of them; and the women said, Is this Naomi? Naomi means pleasant, and in an earlier time it must have been a perfect description of Naomi. The fact that so many women remembered her and were so glad to see her suggests that she had once been a gregarious soul, beloved by all who knew her. But now her life was so colored with sadness that she told the other women, Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, meaning bitter, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me? This was not a complaint as much as a heartfelt lament. She knew, as Job did, that ist is the Lord who gives and takes away. She understood the principle of God's sovereignty. In calling herself Mara, she was not suggesting that she had become a bitter person; but, as her words reveal, that Providence had handed her bitter cup to drink. She was the hand of God in her sufferings, but far from complaining, I think she was simply acknowledging her faith in the sovereignty of God, even in the midst of a life of bitter grief. Everything scripture tells us about Naomi indicates that she remained steadfast in the faith throughout her trials. She was not unlike Job---she was a woman of great faith who withstood almost unimaginable testing without ever once wavering in her love for God and her commitment to His will. So hers is actually an impressive expression of faith, without an ounce of resentment in it.

There is perhaps no passage in the entire Bible in which the personality of the Holy Spirit comes out more tenderly and touchingly than in Eph. iv. 30, “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” Here grief is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a blind, impersonal influence or power that comes into our lives to illuminate, sanctify and empower them. No, He is immeasurably more than that, He is a holy Person who comes to dwell in our hearts, One who sees clearly every act we perform, every word we speak, every thought we entertain, even the most fleeting fancy that is allowed to pass through our minds; and if there is anything in act, or word or deed that is impure, unholy, unkind, selfish, mean, petty or untrue, this infinitely holy One is deeply grieved by it.

Since we seem to have lost the willingness, the vocabulary, or even the capacity, to engage in authentic biblical lament (at least in public worship and certainly in the West), what use have we for a book with such a name? We hardly know how to use the numerous psalms of lament, let alone a whole bookful of (almost but not quite) unrelieved grief and protest. Ironically, by giving no attention to the book of Lamentations, we join those within the book itself who passed by Lady Zion, shaking their heads but offering no comfort to the desolate suffering city and people.

It will not, however, affect one tiny bit the question of whether the text has a literal meaning because—mark this—every biblical text has a literal meaning. Many people are stunned to hear this. That is because many people think a "literal meaning" can only be conveyed by literal language. They make the mistake of assuming that an author who uses metaphor, fiction, hyperbole, or various other figures of speech does not have a literal meaning. Thus, for instance, if I say "my heart is broken", some people mistakenly imagine that I "meant nothing literally." But, of course, I do. I literally mean I am deeply grieved and I am expressing that grief via a metaphor. Likewise, if I say "I stood in line for a million years" I am using an exaggeration to communicate another literal meaning: I waited a long time. Indeed, more often than not, metaphor is exactly the right vehicle for conveying a literal meaning and is far better than nonfigurative language. The shortest distance between two minds is a figure of speech. -- Making Senses of Scripture

Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction,4 and my bones grow weak. Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbors and an object of dread to my closest friends— those who see me on the street flee from me. I am forgotten as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery. For I hear many whispering, “Terror on every side!” They conspire against me and plot to take my life. But I trust in you, LORD; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me. Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love. Let me not be put to shame, LORD, for I have cried out to you; but let the wicked be put to shame and be silent in the realm of the dead. Let their lying lips be silenced, for with pride and contempt they speak arrogantly against the righteous.

24 Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. 25 Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents. 26 For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded. 27 Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness. 28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous. 29 But I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high. 30 I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. 31

A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother.

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

We dare not assume that the Lord will remove all illness from those we love, but we dare not forget that believing prayer for the sick is far more likely to be followed by restoration than anything else in the world; and where this does not happen, we must meekly bow to His will by whom life and death are determined. The tender heart of Jesus waits to hear our griefs; let us pour them into His patient ear.

These particular beliefs are being challenged—God as supernatural being up there, out there; humans as the center and point of creation; Christianity as the true religion; Christianity as singularly about individual salvation; the Bible as consistent, not contradictory; you can add to the list. Christians in our day are being pressed to reflect on cherished beliefs. Their foundations are shaking. Some seize the opportunity. Others dig in and resent the challenge of this inner, theological work. Jesus references the “winnowing fan that separates the grain from the chaff” (Matt 3:12). Isn’t this a part of what you do? You help parishioners separate the wheat from the chaff, letting go what’s not alive and retaining what’s lifegiving. Each letting go is a loss. Each one is an experience of dying. It’s grief work. It’s hospice chaplaincy. With patience and tender care you invite members to grieve the loss of what was but no longer contains vitality for them.

Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

the mothers look at him slant-eyed. If my daughter were in heaven could she still watch the baby while I work in my manioc? Could she carry water for me? Would a son in heaven have wives to take care of me when I am old? Our Father takes their ironical and self-interested tone to indicate a lack of genuine grief. His scientific conclusion: the Congolese do not become attached to their children as we Americans do. Oh, a man of the world is Our Father. He is writing a learned article on this subject for the Baptist scholars back home.

AS LONG AS I KEPT MOVING, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn’t touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown.

All Scripture is helpful and relevant to your life. But the Bible is more than a good self-help book; it is a treasure trove of godly principles and truths that can radically change your life for the better.

We, the called and faithful and chosen, will drive away our griefs and set up our banners of confidence in the name of God. Let others lament over their troubles; we with joy will magnify the Lord. Eternal Spirit, our effectual Comforter, we who are the temples in which You dwell will never cease from adoring and blessing the name of Jesus. Jesus must have the crown of our heart’s delight; we will not dishonor our Bridegroom by mourning in His presence. We are ordained to be the minstrels of the skies; let us rehearse our everlasting anthem before we sing it in the halls of the New Jerusalem

While Christ is a lion to the impenitent, he is a lamb to the penitent - the reduced, the open, the hungry, the desiring, the confessing, the self-effacing. He hates with righteous hatred all that plagues you. Remember that Isaiah 53 speaks of Christ bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows (v. 4). He wasn't only punished in our place, experiencing something we never will (condemnation); he also suffered with us, experiencing what we ourselves do (mistreatment). In your grief, he is grieved. In your distress, he is distressed. Are you angry today? Let us not be too quick to assume our anger is sinful. After all, the Bible positively orders us to be angry when occasion calls for it (Ps. 4:4; Eph. 4:26). Perhaps you have reason to be angry. Perhaps you have been sinned against, and the only appropriate response is anger. Be comforted by this: Jesus is angry alongside you. He joins in your anger. Indeed, he is angrier than you could ever be about the wrong done to you. Your just anger is a shadow of his. And his anger, unlike yours, has zero taint of sin in it. As you consider those who have wronged you, let Jesus be angry on your behalf. His anger can be trusted. For it is an anger that springs from his compassion for you. The indignation he felt when he came upon the mistreatment of others in the Gospels is the same indignation he feels now in heaven upon mistreatments of you. In that knowledge, release your debtor and breathe again. Let Christ's heart for you not only wash you in his compassion but also assure you of his solidarity in rage against all that distresses you, most centrally death and hell.

Luther poignantly speaks of the Psalms: “Where can one find nobler words to express joy than in the Psalms of praise or gratitude? In them you can see into the hearts of all the saints as if you were looking at a lovely pleasure-garden, or were gazing into heaven. . . . Or where can one find more profound, more penitent, more sorrowful words in which to express grief than in the Psalms of lamentation?

The same principle applies today. Grief for sin, and joy in God’s forgiveness and the assurance of his love, are not far from each other, for the God who convicts of sin is the God of mercy who saves, and repenting of sin and trusting Christ for forgiveness are two sides of the same coin.

15For a father consumed with untimely grief When his child was soon taken from him Made an image of the once-dead human being And honored him now as a god, And handed down to those under him secret mysteries and initiations. 16Then the ungodly custom, strengthened by time, was kept as a law, And at the command of tyrants carved images were worshiped. 17When men could not honor a tyrant before his face Because he lived far away, They imagined his face from a distance And made a visible image of the honored king, That by their zeal they might flatter the one absent as though present. 18Then the ambition of the craftsman encouraged Even those who did not know the king to increase their worship. 19For wishing perhaps to please the one who ruled over him, He skillfully forced the likeness into a more beautiful form, 20And the multitude, attracted by the popularity of his work, Now considered him as an object of worship Whom a short time before they honored as a man. 21But this became a trap for their life, Because men, in bondage either to calamity or to kingly power, Conferred on stones and wood a name not shared with another.

Hell is going to be eternity filled with grief and pain, an unquenchable fire, according to the Bible.31 —FRANKLIN GRAHAM

As a girl rebelling against my father’s dogma, I had scoffed at Job for accepting God’s consolation of a new wife and new children. But I, most Joblike, when Giles was dead, embraced Kit, and when Kit conveyed that he was not coming back, it was the messenger himself, Ahab, whom I immediately loved. If Mother and Liberty were gone, then here was Susan to unburden me of love. Not to be loved but to love lightened my load of grief and gave value and direction to my life.

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;           the more knowledge, the more grief.

The longest chapter in the Bible touts the Scriptures as being a soothing balm for the Psalmist’s troubled emotions. He doesn’t reveal what is rocking his boat, but the author of Psalm 119 is clearly under pressure. Repeatedly, the Psalmist says that his soul is “crushed with longing” (vs. 20), and that he is being treated poorly by somebody (vs. 22). So how does the Psalmist find comfort? You guessed it — from the Word of God. My soul weeps because of grief; strengthen me according to Your word (Psalm 119:28). That theme is repeated for 176 verses. Whatever is getting the Psalmist’s goat, he makes it clear that there is only one solution for his situation; the Word of God.

Once, I searched God in the Holy Bible, and read it with freest of eyes and soul. What I found from reading had ring of grief, for they ran counter to many’s belief. Publishing it, I got one reaction: “Seek scholar, not your interpretation!” But which scholar? All sects have own scholars, with each sect wearing different collar.

do not think for one moment that there is any ready transfer from this narrative to our real-life crisis with the virus. The Bible does not often easily “apply.” The Bible does, however, invite an open imagination that hopes for the best outcomes of serious scientific research. At the same time, it affirms that deeply inscrutable holy reality is in, with, under, and