Good Grief
“My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.” - Psalm 31:10
Grief is an emotion no one desires to experience, but everyone inevitably faces. Grief is the child who struggles with the transition of a parent. It’s the parent who struggles with the departure of a child who is now away at college living on their own, developing new relationships, and walking to the beat of his or her own drum without parental supervision. Grief is the complexity of feelings and emotions that consumes one’s heart when tragedy strikes—from shock to denial to anger to guilt to mourning.
David wrote in Psalm 31:10, “My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.” In other words, he is pointing to the hurt and the heartache, the pain and the pitfalls that come when grief invades the human spirit. It can cause depression. It causes people to be unable to sleep, unable to work, and unable to eat. And if people are not careful, they can lose the desire for life altogether.
But as tough as grief is, as difficult as it is to lose someone you love, I want to tell you that there’s something redemptive about it. Yes, there is pain, but there is also such a thing as good grief; there is something of a silver lining that can be found in this most difficult of season of life. There is a flip side to it all.
Perhaps that is what the prophet Isaiah had in mind when he said in Isaiah 61:3 that God is able to “console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called streets of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.”
We know that God can make good out of all things, and that includes grief. It may not feel like it right now, but there can be good grief. God can redeem you! This is not the end my friend. Hold fast to your hope that your God will bring good to your grief!
Grief is an emotion no one desires to experience, but everyone inevitably faces. Grief is the child who struggles with the transition of a parent. It’s the parent who struggles with the departure of a child who is now away at college living on their own, developing new relationships, and walking to the beat of his or her own drum without parental supervision. Grief is the complexity of feelings and emotions that consumes one’s heart when tragedy strikes—from shock to denial to anger to guilt to mourning.
David wrote in Psalm 31:10, “My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.” In other words, he is pointing to the hurt and the heartache, the pain and the pitfalls that come when grief invades the human spirit. It can cause depression. It causes people to be unable to sleep, unable to work, and unable to eat. And if people are not careful, they can lose the desire for life altogether.
But as tough as grief is, as difficult as it is to lose someone you love, I want to tell you that there’s something redemptive about it. Yes, there is pain, but there is also such a thing as good grief; there is something of a silver lining that can be found in this most difficult of season of life. There is a flip side to it all.
Perhaps that is what the prophet Isaiah had in mind when he said in Isaiah 61:3 that God is able to “console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called streets of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.”
We know that God can make good out of all things, and that includes grief. It may not feel like it right now, but there can be good grief. God can redeem you! This is not the end my friend. Hold fast to your hope that your God will bring good to your grief!
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