Grief Lingers
True grief does not disappear from your life. You may move on from the most immediate pain and find other aspects of your life to be fulfilling. But then something happens, maybe even something that appears trivial, and the pain of your loss revisits you. It may be something said innocently by others or a song heard on the radio. It may be a picture or thought that pops into your mind. Whatever the trigger is, the pain evoked is real.
Real pain causes isolation. You withdraw and you realize that no one else feels what you are feeling. The temptation is to try to suppress it or even feel stupid that you can’t get beyond it. After all, those who would like to be your friends want you to get beyond your hurt and return to a normal life.
Liturgy Builds Community
Recall what happens when you participate in worship. You enter a sanctuary and immediately you are surrounded by symbols that point to a reality that is greater than your immediate world.
You sing hymns that connect you with the other worshippers. The words of the hymns also speak of a faith that connects you with others and with God. If the great commandment is to Love God and Love Neighbor, worship offers you an opportunity to be connected with both.
Then through litanies, prayers, and Scripture, you hear words that connect you with believers across time and distance. For thousands of years, all around the globe and in a variety of languages, these words have spoken of healing, hope, and love.
Your Personal Tool Box
I want to suggest that you construct your own personal liturgical toolbox that you can draw upon when grief, either immediate or from deep in your memory, touches your soul.
For example, identify a couple of favorite hymns that gives you comfort. Amazing Grace has served that purpose for many. Perhaps Be Thou My Vision or Make Me a Captive Lord. Whatever you choose, you should commit a verse and the tune to memory so that you can sing it wherever you are.
Then draw from the vast resource of Scripture and choose and commit to memory some special scriptural verses that offer strength and courage. It may recall a special scene in Jesus’ life such as his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane—let this cup pass from me, but nevertheless not my will but yours be done. Or it may be Paul’s words in Romans 8:28 ff where Paul, who experienced plenty of suffering and grief of his own, affirms that conditions do not defeat God’s purpose and in the midst of everything, good and bad, God is working for good “for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
Psalms are a particular rich resource from which you can create your own prayer. Since you are preparing for the unexpected, you might find it helpful to use a template for calling cards and create several cards you can carry with you.
| Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved. Psalm 55:22 | Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. Psalm 69:1-3 |
| You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever. Psalm 30: 11-12 | May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping bearing the seed of sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. Psalm 126:4-6 |
| God does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. Psalm 103:10 | You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Psalm 23:5 |
| This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24 | When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. Psalm 8:3-5 |
| Give ear to my words, O Lord; give heed to my sighing. Listen to the sound of my cry, my king and my God, for to you I pray. O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I plead my case to you and watch. Psalm 5:1-3 | Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror…Turn O Lord, save my life; deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love. Psalm 6:2,4 |
Whatever the ritual act you choose, and you may draw upon several according to the circumstance, it should be something to which you turn, and, if possible, physically engage in aloud when you are alone. What you are doing is reconnecting with your faith in a transcendent God who is not defeated by the negatives and can lift you up “out of the miry bog.” (Psalm 40:2)
It’s your personal toolbox of resources prepared ahead of time and to be drawn upon in painful or stressful circumstances.
Steve, thanks for sharing your grief with us and offering tools for coping as we remember or anticipate our own dark valleys.