Are you grieving, friend? Is your heart broken? Are you hurting? Do you feel all alone with the grief? Or even if there are others around, do you feel like they cannot truly understand? Do you feel overwhelmed by grief? Do you need help? Hope? Comfort? Healing? Peace? Joy? A loving hand to reach down and pull you up out of the river of grief you are drowning in?
I woke this very morning I write this with a grieving heart. I have experienced countless losses, tragedies, disappointments, etc. over the years, and sometimes I somehow just get walloped by it all. Like someone is dunking me hard under the stormy waters of a river of endless grief. Like I cannot come up for air for more than a few moments before I get sucked back down under.
And then it is the grief feels like it will never cease. It will only grow. Worsen. Taking me ever deeper down below. Where darkness prevails and I cannot find an ounce of light. Where my heart already broken somehow manages to break further.
Until I am so shattered, so hurting, so grieving, I cannot fathom how I will go on in life. Long ago I called grief a monster. The grief monster. A monster that comes against me so sickeningly hard I cannot imagine how I will ever have victory. How I will ever come into the light again and take my next step of faith forward in life.
Sometimes just when I feel like I am about to be swallowed up by the grief, when my heart is so overwhelmed I feel like I just cannot take it anymore, when I am right on the verge of reverting to years ago when I went through decades of on and off again suicidal thoughts, something happens.
I remember something awesome. Something wonderful. Something good. Something great. Something amazing. Something incredible. I remember something about someone. Someone so wonderful, so good, so great, so amazing, so incredible, so important that in an instant I get a glimpse of light, a burst of hope, a sigh of rest, a ray of sweet sunshine, and a peace that got buried under it all.
God almighty offers His children love, peace, hope, joy, comfort, wisdom, kindness, care, compassion, mercy, grace, tenderness, gentleness, rescue, shelter, refuge, a listening ear, and ever more beyond what we can possibly fathom.
When we turn from our sins, believe Jesus Christ is Lord and died on the cross for us and was raised from the dead, truly turning to God and His ways, genuinely committing our lives to God and to living for Him, God forgives us, gives us a forever relationship with Himself, and His Holy Spirit comes to live in us. We are spiritually born again and enter into forever fellowship with God. We are promised forever in heaven with God instead of eternity in hell and the lake of fire apart from God in endless torment.
In and through Jesus and a deeply personal intimate relationship with Him and in God’s Word, the Bible, we can find all we need – including indescribably wonderful love, comfort, healing, understanding, and fellowship when we are grieving.
If you are grieving, dear friend, please come to the Lord. Come to the Bible and read hungrily and thirstily of His Word. Pour out your heart to God. Cry out to God. Pray to Him. Seek Him. Listen to Him.
Come into the Lord’s shelter and rest a while as He loves you and heals your broken heart.
“From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For You have been a shelter for me, A strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings…” Psalms 61:2-4 NKJV
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:2-4 NKJV
“God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.” Psalms 46:1 NKJV