Episode #186 How Can Grief Bring Us Closer to God (and each other)? – Heartbreak / Give Your Heart a Break

Hey friends, it's Jen, and welcome to this episode of Good God Talks. Today we're talking about bringing our grief to the Lord. And this topic is really helpful for me because I tend to isolate when I'm in pain and that can include emotional pain too. I kind of withdraw within myself. And instead I'm growing in this habit of communal grieving, of grief within community.

And the Bible is full of examples about why we get to do that and how that is helpful for us. In fact, there are whole passages of scripture that are referred to as laments. We have the book of lamentations, and we also have laments in other passages of scripture, including many of the Psalms.

A lament is really just a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.

And these psalms of lament were often sung amongst the congregation. And it could be the community lamenting together, or it could also be individual laments as someone is able to express their sorrow or their grief to the Lord, in the safety of their community.

And it's not lost on me as I'm talking about this concept of bringing other people into our pain, that not every person is a safe person. And so my encouragement for you as you put this into practice in your own life is to do what I'm learning to do myself, and that's to find safe spaces. To find people that can let you be you, in all of the rawness and the realness of how you're feeling in that moment.

That can be safe, not only to hear you and to make space for you to process and share and grieve, but also can be safe for you to not leave you where you are. It can be so helpful to have conversations with people who understand our pain. But if our only commonality is our common grief, our common trauma, then sometimes those relationships can become unhealthy because we just keep reopening wounds instead of helping one another walk in healing.

Before I get too much farther, I want to read some passages of scripture for us. In Romans 12:15, it says,
“rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn.” (Romans 12:15)

And we have a description of what it looks like to be the body of Christ in the 1 Corinthians 12:26. And it says,
“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:26)
We can rejoice with those who rejoice. We can rejoice with parts of the body of Christ who are honored. And also, we can mourn with those who mourn. We can suffer with those who are suffering.

As I've researched this topic of lament, one of the things I found so interesting is that singing songs together actually puts our heartbeats and our breath on a similar rhythm.

There's been a variety of studies done on this topic, and they talk about how when people sing together, their heartbeats and their breathing sync up, which can create a sense of unity and unison in the group.

I know modern day our opportunities to sing together tend to come in celebrations when we sing happy birthday day or when we sing theme songs or familiar lyrics at a sports game. But in ancient Israel, the community would gather together and also sing songs of praise and lament. And we can have that experience each time we gather together for corporate times of worship with the local church. These times help us feel less isolated. And as we sing songs of worship, those can also include songs of grieving, and we can bring that to the Lord and feel more unified and feel more included with one another.

I'm going to read Psalm 13 for us and if you find yourself in a heavy season, I encourage you echo these words back to God.

Feel seen and safe, even as you reflect on this psalm from so many years ago with someone else who can also understand or relate to some of the pain that you're going through. Psalm 13 in the ESV,

Ps 13
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.

The last verse I want to read for us is John 15:11. And this is Jesus speaking and he says,

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

Scripture is full of examples of God being close to us in the times and the circumstances where we are broken hearted. Our grief can be communal with him and our joy can be communal with him too.

As we close out this episode, I have two questions for us to take to God today. And the first one is:

God, how are you with me in my grief?

Ask him to show you, to give you pictures or examples, or to bring it to mind as you go throughout your day. God, how are you with me in my grief?

And then the second question is seizing this opportunity to not isolate, but to allow someone else to know what's going on in your heart and in your mind, to share your circumstances, to come genuinely as you are and allow someone else to enter into your grief with you.

And our question for God is:

God, who else can be here with me? And how can we grieve together?

Friend, you don't have to go through your grief alone.

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

Connect with Jen on Instagram