October 2022 – Welcome

Beautiful Grief: A Lament Series – Week 4

Let Us Lament

Hebrews 4:14-16
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Grief is hard, heavy, and messy. I have heard it described as wild and like being in a hurricane. It can level us and change our world for the rest of our lives. It seems unfair and unjust. Our hearts are created for Eden but we live in a world of sin, darkness, and pain. The moment sin entered the world, so did death. Death, pain, disappointment, and sorrow is a reality for all humans on earth. But as Christians, we have the opportunity to see grief differently from the rest of the world. The quote by Pastor Mark Vroegop from the first lament devotional reminds us of the gift of lament. “To cry is human, to lament is Christian.” You can read the full devotional here.

Beautiful Grief: A Lament Series – Week 3

Jesus Lamented

Isaiah 53:3
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

“Jesus wept.” John 11:35

Deemed the shortest verse in the Bible but full of so much impact and meaning. Jesus himself wept, felt deep, human emotion, and lived the painful life of a human here on Earth. A place God created to be good but was instead rattled and tormented by sin and death.

I have often wrestled with the understanding of Jesus being fully God and fully human. I don’t think our simple minds can comprehend what this means and looked like for Jesus during his 33 years on Earth. However, there is something so sweet and comforting knowing Jesus was, in fact, fully human. He walked through all the human emotions you and I face even two thousand years later.

Beautiful Grief: A Lament Series – Week 2

How to Lament

Psalm 13
1. How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?

2. How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3. Look on me and answer, LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

4. and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5. But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.

6. I will sing the LORD’s praise,
for he has been good to me.

Though lament is an undeveloped skill in most modern Christian lives, it is a huge part of God’s word. Over a third of the Psalms are laments, there is an entire book of the Bible (Lamentations) dedicated to lament, and it is the major theme of Job, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Ezra, Isaiah, Jonah, and Habakkuk. This is in the Old Testament alone! So clearly, it is important to God and, therefore, should be important to us.

Beautiful Grief: A Lament Series – Week 1

What is Lament?

Psalm 34:17-18
The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

It can be easy for us to give grief tiered levels. The loss of a child is much more devastating than the loss of a dream. But I’m not sure we can tell our individual hearts this for our specific individual grief. Sins and hardships of this world can also equivalently break our hearts without prejudice.

When we don’t give our hearts the proper space to grieve even the “small” losses, and to draw us closer to the heart of God in those moments, our souls become weary. Our hearts become cynical and even apathetic. We shut down and lose perspective. Our hearts no longer break for the things that break the Father’s heart. The “smaller” losses begin to build up until one day something so simple and ordinary can completely unravel us or make our hearts extremely hard. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

First Series Coming Soon!

Beautiful Grief: The Practice of Lament

The last ten weeks we have been walking through how to experience the protective care of God together through devotionals I wrote during moments or seasons of pain, disappointment, and confusion. These times of struggle drew me closer to God in unexpected ways as I was forced to evaluate where I was placing my trust, hopes, and dreams.