The gift of grief
Dan Harper
September 23, 2019
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Jeremiah 8:18 - 9:1 (NIVUK)
18 You who are my Comforter in sorrow,
my heart is faint within me.
19 Listen to the cry of my people
from a land far away:
‘Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King no longer there?’‘Why have they aroused my anger with their images,
with their worthless foreign idols?’20 ‘The harvest is past,
the summer has ended,
and we are not saved.’21 Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
I mourn, and horror grips me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
for the wound of my people?
(9) 1 Oh, that my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
for the slain of my people.
You cry and God knows your tears.
You weep and God hears your lament.
You are struck and grief and God are with you in your pain.
In everyday life you will encounter death and loss more than you would like. The greatest pain is when someone held close to your heart dies, but this pain is not to be avoided but encountered with God.
Grief is not only encountered in death but in different ways though life. When the seasons of life turn, a job is lost or situations changes, it is possible to feel a different sort of grief which also hurts.
The loss of something you love, if it is a person, position or project, can fill our eyes with tears and make our hearts heavy.
In all loss and grief God is with us. In the ordinary day-to-day loss of possession or position or the extraordinary and excruciating loss of those dearest to us we do not journey alone. God does not make the pain disappear but journeys with you as you honestly and openly wring tears from your heart in grief. God laments that which is lost and helps you hold on tight to that which is good.
Dear God.
Help me to encounter you in the ordinary and extraordinary
Be with me as I grieve that which is lost
Help me to cling to what is good
Amen.
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