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Hello my friends,
I posted something recently on social about grief and the stories people shared about their own grief were powerful and moving. If you have time, you can go read them on my Instagram, Facebook, or Substack posts that begin with “It’s hard to name the kind of grief…”. So, today, I want to create a space for you to name your grief, know you are not alone in it, and hopefully feel comforted by that understanding in order to move forward in our work to bring healing to this world.
Recommended Resources:
-What Art Does For Your Brain by Hidden Brain. I found this episode to be very insightful. The host has an in depth conversation with Psychobiologist Daisy Fancourt about how engagement with the arts can help to regulate our emotions, build resilience, and support long-term well-being. I encourage you to give it a listen as well.
-indigo: the color of grief by Jonathan Foster. My good friend and theologian Jonathan Foster wrote this book after processing his own personal experience with loss, grief, and joy as he navigated the tragic loss of his daughter. He vulnerably shares his journey and his relationship with God in this process.
-Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times by Soong-Chan Rah. I know I have recommended this book several times before, but given today's topic, I wanted to share it again. It not only helps to define lament in a powerful way in the context of the Bible, but it goes on to show the power of lament within the Bible and in the world beyond.
An Invitation To Grieve.
Before we begin, I want to invite you to find a comfortable place. Maybe light a candle or turn on a soft light. Whatever makes you feel relaxed.
Perhaps you like silence as you read. If you are looking for something that helps your mind process grief, I have really found this bilateral soundtrack for EMDR video very soothing and centering as I read, study, or process my thoughts. If that interests you, you can find it here to play softly in the background.
Then I just want to invite you to take some deep breaths through your nose then slowly release that breath through your mouth. This is a proven way to calm your nervous system and help clear the mind a bit. I have found doing this several times is really helpful.
When you’re ready, let’s begin.
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
-Psalm 34:18:
"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
-Psalm 147:3:
"Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”
-Psalm 23:4
Where do we even start?
It's hard to name the kind of grief you feel as you watch the Christian movement that raised you, who taught you about Jesus and to love your neighbor; continually justify cruelty, all for the sake of power, influence, and money.
It's hard to name the kind of grief of knowing that there is nothing so cruel they won't justify. No matter the harm it causes, especially to the poor, the immigrant, the vulnerable, and the planet.
It's hard to name the kind of grief you experience when the Christian movement that raised you questions your own faith for not justifying what they are justifying.
This is what worshiping power looks like.
If you are experiencing this grief, please know you are not alone. You are not insane.
There are many of us who are walking this road of grief as we continue to work towards a better world.
Name The Grief
So take a moment, and notice the shape of this grief. There is so much loss that comes with losing a faith community. There is so much loss that comes with having the Christian movement that taught us about Jesus abandon everything we thought it stood for. Not to mention all the other kinds of grief we may be experiencing alongside this grief. Have you been able to grieve this loss yet? Have you allowed yourself to name the wounds this pain has left?
Take a moment and think about or write down whatever thoughts or feelings come to mind regarding this grief. Maybe you have enough distance from it that you can celebrate some healing you’ve encountered along the way. Maybe it is still raw for you and you need to know that you have the permission to grieve this pain, that you are seen in this pain.
Wherever you are in this process, take a moment to acknowledge this grief, name it for what it is, and express it in whatever way feels right to you.
Confronting The Stigma of Grief.
If you grew up in a similar Christian culture as I did, you experienced a lot of emphasis on joy and celebration. There was this shared understanding that Sunday morning worship, its songs, its testimonies, and its sermons were centered around celebrating God and the happiness God can bring to our individual lives.
Joy is such an important and crucial aspect to our lives. Yet, as the movie Inside Out powerfully showed us, when joy is the only thing focused on, the other aspects of sadness, grief, and lament are overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed. Unfortunately, in our culture as well as with spiritual care, especially within Evangelical Christian spaces, has taken this approach of overemphasizing joy while paying very little attention to sorrow, grief, and lament.
This dynamic can create a stigma around grief. I can remember hearing phrases such as, “you just have to have more faith” or “put your trust in God” or the famous “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” when the topic of sorrow and grief was brought up in church. There was this tacit understanding that we were free to vocalize our joys, but our sorrows needed to be worked out on our own. This even shaped my prayer life, where I didn’t even feel the permission to bring up my sorrows to God. I felt like I needed to have those things worked out before I went into prayer or at the very least, let God know I was working on them so they weren’t something to be overly concerned about.
I would then exile my laments and sorrows to my private scripture study time or just try to think my way through them myself. As you might imagine, this has led to some very significant mental health issues in my life. Something I am still in the process of working through. Thankfully, I am doing so with mental health professionals rather than just trying to tough it out on my own anymore.
What began to shift my understanding of grief and lament was the Bible itself. The Bible is not shy when it comes to sharing grief with others or with God. In fact, lament and grief are central to the biblical narrative. It is a central aspect of books like Job, and many of the major and minor prophets. Many scholars estimate that two-thirds of the Psalms specifically function as prayers of lament. And of course, the Book of Lamentations is five chapters dedicated solely to the public and visceral grief following the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile.
Understanding the centrality of grief and sorrow in the Bible gave me more permission to express and process my own laments, not just to others who loved me, but even to God. It was a liberating experience to say the least. It is something that I am still practicing today, but I feel more and more comfortable with the process the more I practice it.
Where are you in regard to this stigma in processing your own grief? Do you feel like you need to tough it out on your own? Do you feel a twinge of shame when you think about sharing your laments with loved ones or with God? Have you been able to work through this stigma and begin to build healthy practices of processing your grief?
Take a moment to just triangulate where you are in understanding the nature of grief and the importance of sharing that with others and with God.
What are you grieving today?
I am going to name some things that I am perpetually grieving. It won’t be an exhaustive list of course, just enough to encourage you to share what you are grieving today as well.
I grieve the cruelty that is being carried out towards our fellow human beings by those in power, especially immigrants, the poor, women, children, disabled, and the most vulnerable.
I grieve the continuous disregard and ravaging of the natural world, of this planet we call home, and how even those who claim God as its creator treat it as a disposable product to be exploited for our own gain.
I grieve the growing anti intellectualism, anti science, anti empathy, anti equality, anti diversity, and anti inclusion that seems to be dictating our world today.
I grieve how so much of this is being carried out under the banner of “Christianity.”
I grieve the future that this is creating for my children and the next generation.
Take a moment to name some specific things that you are currently grieving. Are they similar to mine? Are they different? Have you already worked through a lot of the things you are grieving and ready to get moving towards healing and solutions? Notice where you are on the spectrum of grief. Pinpoint the places you still need to express and process as well as the places you have experienced healing and resolve.
Lament is not weakness, it is an act of faith.
I have come to believe that grief is holy. At its core, it is the acknowledgment of pain, sorrow, wounds, and that things are not as they should be. That is all the prophets over the brokenness and injustice of ancient Israel. That is John the Baptist towards the society and life under King Herod. That is Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. It is grieving the wounds that are currently being caused. We can’t heal the wounds we refuse to acknowledge. Grief is acknowledging those wounds.
I have also come to believe that lament is an act of resistance, both individually and collectively. Authoritarianism, both in Jesus’ time and in our own, is completely opposed to lament. Because lament names the problems with the current status quo that religious and political authoritarianism has built itself on. This is why authoritarians get so outraged at protests and those who name injustices. They work so hard to propagate a “pure” picture of America and Christianity because it is the scaffolding to their entire pursuit of power and removing the people it disproves of and who stand in the way of their power. Authoritarianism inherently does not allow the naming of wounds let alone the collective expression of lament.
The same is true on an individual level. We can function under a kind of spiritual authoritarianism that convinces us that expressing our grief and sorrow is something that will only cause disruption to our lives and our relationship with God. Yet just as with our society, we cannot progress towards flourishing when we are not allowed to heal from our wounds.
In many ways, grief is a reminder that you refuse to be led by anything but love.
Love is the greatest commandment according to Jesus.
As heartbreaking, disorienting, and confusing as this grief is, expressing it and working through it is the active decision to continue to be led by love.
It is a declaration that trusts that love will have the last word.
Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” In Matthew 5:4. I deeply believe that it is in the practice of mourning that we open ourselves up to be comforted and healed. So, I pray this brief time of naming and processing some of your grief also grants you the permission to remain open to being comforted by both God and others. That it reminded you that you deserve to be seen, to be known, and to be healed from your wounds.
Thank you for spending this time with me.
"Praise be to the... God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles.” -2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Prayer
O God,
I am undone by the weight of it all. The cruelty. The lies. The faces of those who suffer while the powerful satisfy themselves on their pain.
Every headline feels like another blow to the ribs, and I can no longer tell if I am angry, grieving, or just numb.
I work, I scroll, I watch, I research, I listen and I cannot turn away.
Children wailing in the dust, the vulnerable being abused, the earth cracking beneath greed, neighbors despising neighbors, and those who bear your name using it to bless the harm being done.
Where are you, O God of mercy? Why do you seem so silent while truth is strangled and justice mocked? Have you grown weary of our prayers, or are we simply too overwhelmed by it all to hear your reply?
I confess, Lord, I feel powerless. My words fall flat, my strength fails, and my hope flickers like a candle in the winds of this world’s madness.
But still, even in this despair, I will not stop calling your name. I will not stop joining the work of those who insist on loving their neighbors.
You who brought life out of dust, You who split the seas, You who were crucified by cruelty itself, rise again. Move among us.
Dismantle the empires of hatred and arrogance. Lift the lowly. Heal the wounded. Break open our hearts until they pour out compassion again.
Teach us to hope as those who refuse to look away. Give us courage to love when the world worships power. And when all strength is spent, hold us in the dark until your light returns.
Amen.
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A 30 Day Day Devotional:
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Today, our world can often feel overwhelmed by darkness, division, and despair. I created this 30-day devotional to... Read more |
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Ben
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