Acquainted with Grief

A married couple came to me after Sunday school.

They had eaten supper with one of our students, and they were troubled.

“This little girl shouldn’t even know about the things she was telling us,” the wife said. 

The husband agreed and asked the girl’s name again so that they could pray for her. Both husband and wife had experienced trauma growing up themselves, and it grieved them to find another child caught in the same malicious trap. Their grief was transformed to compassion as they ministered to the girl.

Grief is a funny thing.

One minute, I am standing on a step ladder, rummaging through the cabinet for a marinade recipe, and the next minute, faded handwriting on a scrap of paper has me sitting on the floor sobbing. 

The grief we experience in ministry isn’t too different. 

When I went to visit some children at their home this week, I saw the little one playing outside. As I approached, I realized there was a whole host of adults inside the open door of the house. They were sitting in a circle, all leaned forward, like drummers around a drum. 

They weren’t making music, however. When they glimpsed me, there was a wild scramble to push the door closed to conceal the powders and pills. The child then took my attention. Soiled clothes from the night before clung to the child, even though it was late afternoon. I visited outside for a while, and when I turned to leave, the child clung to me.

“Don’t leave me here alone! Please! Don’t leave me here alone!”

The rest of the day was a haze. I couldn’t concentrate on anything I was reading or the conversations I had. It was hard to complete a task. I wanted to sleep. 

Paul Miller, in his book, A Praying Life, writes, “When you lament, you live simultaneously in the past, present, and future. A lament connects God’s past promise with my present chaos, hoping for a better future. So, on the cross, Jesus cried out, ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’”

If we allow our grief- whether from loss or from ministry- to overwhelm us, then it remains just grief, crippling us and rendering us useless to the present moment. However, when we allow the Lord to transform our grief to compassion, He uses it to fuel His work in the future. 

Jesus was “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” When we look closely at the times He was grieved, it helps us navigate our own laments. 

Jesus wept when His cousin John was executed and when His friend Lazarus died. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, but death still grieved Him.

Jesus grieved over the Pharisees’ hardness of heart when He was about to heal the man with the withered hand. He yearned for them to enter into the man’s grief so that He could create in them hearts of compassion.

Jesus wept over the whole city of Jerusalem when it was rejecting Him. Instead of focusing on His own hurt, He saw theirs. His grief was compassion.

When we grieve, we can say alongside the Prophet Isaiah, “From of old, no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for Him.”

He brings us joy, even in the midst of sorrow, because that’s Who He is.