Hello, everyone. I’m Ty’Ann Brown, encouraging you to keep the faith.
None of us are going to experience life without having to unfortunately face grief. It’s that kind of universal experience where the loss of a loved one hurts more than words can describe, and often grief comes in waves, where it’s just too much to bear all at one time, but this is not the only type of grief.
There’s grief when a spouse asks for a divorce. There’s grief when you miss everything that you’ve worked hard for and planned for, and even in the midst of this coronavirus, there is so much grief as we hear of unfathomable stories of people within one family dying because of the COVID-19, and we wonder how much of this can we bear.
There are other types of grief where students anticipated walking down the aisle for their graduation, their prom, experiencing their rites of passage. All of it missed. There’s the grief of canceled weddings, and just the overall grief of life being not what we expected it to be.
There are many characters in the Bible who experience grief, even Jesus. When Lazarus died, Martha and others began to weep and to mourn, and Jesus saw them, and He even was moved deeply and began to weep, even though He knew that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.
But there was this main character in the Bible by the name of Job, who experienced grief time and time again. He lost everything. He lost his children. He lost his health, his possessions. He began to shave his head and to rip his clothes and fall into deep despair, and ultimately, he rails at God, asking how are these things befalling him. He even looked to his friends for answers, and they didn’t have any.
But after a while, God visits Job personally, and He shows him His faithfulness and His goodness, even though it seems that He didn’t answer his questions directly. He restored him way better than he was before all of these things happened to him, and I come to encourage you, that you, too, if you have a relationship with God, there is nothing that can hinder you in terms of any questions that you may have or anything that may come to hurt or harm you or cause questions or whatever you may feel you have lost. God is with you.
Psalm 34:18 tells us that God is near those who are brokenhearted, and He saves those who are of a crushed spirit. Keep this verse in mind as you begin to accept that life is not always fair, but God is always so good. And when you have this close bond with God, there are two things that can help you cope with grief. One, let go of any guilt or questions as to whether God is punishing you. He’s not. Because while sin can bring about suffering, not all suffering is caused by sin. Think about how Jesus suffered. And two, speak to God about your grief. Get it all out. Writing it out can help too.
Because God is close to you, He can hear you, and He can save you. So keep the faith.
