Skip to main content

Hope in Sadness

 The Lord graciously made me with a happy disposition. My natural bent is joy. A couple years ago, however, something happened that shattered my heart. Due to the extreme emotional hurt, I was physically ill. I cried every day for weeks, then a couple times a week for months. For a long time I was sad. For years, the truest, deepest emotion I felt was sadness. When you live with sadness you get pretty good at carrying on. You live your normal life but where the world used to be full of colour, now your life is tinted by grief. If someone asked "how are you?" I could honestly say "good" because I was walking closely with God, but if someone had asked "how do you feel?" I would have had to reply "sad." 

Psalm 66 became the theme of my emotional experience. "You brought us through fire and through water, you laid a crushing burden on our backs." 

That's how I felt. 

All the time. 

Surrounded by fire and water, often burdened beyond what I could carry. I knew God had a purpose and a plan, which gave me a peace and hope, but it did not revoke the sorrow.

I share this because I know I'm not the only one. There are people who are reading this who feel sad and have felt sad for a long time. Not depressed, not angry, not even feeling that they've been treated unfairly, but a profound grief because of life circumstances and experiences.  

There are people reading this who believe in and trust the sovereignty and goodness of God while at the same time are deeply, deeply sorrowful because of the effects of sin in this world. 

Godly grief is not sinful. We can hold both. 

One thing that helped me immensely was a book called "Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy" by Mark Vroegop. He taught me how to use the Psalms and lament. Lament is something we never talk about, but I believe understanding godly lament is fundamental for the Christian. We will drown in this sinful world if we do not learn to lament before the face of God, in the arms of God. (perhaps a post on lament will appear here in the future).

I lamented, I prayed for joy. For a long time joy did not come. We're talking years. I thought I would never live in the sunshine of constant joy again. 

Then, very recently, while I was driving home from dinner with friends, I realized quite suddenly that I didn't feel sad anymore. I'm sure it had been happening gradually, but it felt sudden to me. The dark cloak of sorrow had fallen off and joy had taken its place. 

I say all this because, having walked through the valley of the shadow and come to the other side, I want you to know that your prayers for joy, your hope that light will eventually shine in your heart again, they are not for nothing. I do not know why God is bringing you through fire and water, but now I have also experienced the next phrase in that psalm, "He has brought us to a place of abundance." Having experienced both, I carry on with "come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul...But certainly God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me!" 

God hears your prayers. There is a purpose in the suffering that you experience. Child of God, He is bringing you to a place of abundance. He is with you in all the sadness. As Bethany Bernard sings, "But You, Son of Man, Love incarnate, You don't see from far away. You come, and sit with me, and grieve with me, and I see tears on Your face"  (Tears on Your Face). The Saviour is with you in the suffering, He will hold you in this night season whether you feel Him or not. 

Hold on to hope, dear, sorrowing, Christian. 

He who promised is faithful, and He will bring you to abundance, either in this life or the life to come. Someday, all will be made right and you will have joy again. 

What I'm Reading Lately

    • Perelandra by CS Lewis. This was our book club book. 
    • The first two books in Judith Pella and Michael Phillip's "The Russians" series. If you want to learn more about Russia around 1885, these novels are great.
    • Sarah Edwards, Delighting in God, by Sharon James.  

What I'm Enjoying Lately 

    • 1&2 Chronicles. You know, they're books in the Bible. 
    • Warmer weather and the walking trails in town. 
    • Singing Psalms during morning worship. If you are not from a Psalm singing tradition, this is the Psalter that my church uses. 
    • My little dishwasher. 


"The prayer of the upright is His delight." Proverbs 15:8b

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Is Your Purpose?

 A couple weeks ago, a young woman asked me, "what is your purpose?" it kind of threw me off. Ok, it really threw me off. It seemed a bit touché to say "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever" when she was looking for specifics. And I get why she's asking. My life does seem pretty random. Thirty-two years old, working on my BA, teaching music part time, working at a coffee shop part time, and living at least an hour from my closest family member. On paper it looks...well...it looks random. I get it. Kind of hard to pull a purpose out of the randomness.  I was talking to the Lord about it because sometimes, even for myself, the person living this life, it's hard to find a specific purpose in the randomness. Sometimes I wonder,  when I get to Heaven if I'm  going to have anything to offer God, if while other people show up with their kids, I'm going to hold out empty hands and say "it's just me." I mean, if He wants soldiers to defeat spiri...
Post a Comment
Read more

Body Image (1)

Contentedly situated in lawn chairs with our toes in the sand and the baby playing on a blanket at our feet, my friend and I watch her girls digging holes or running between the beach and the lake. Periodically, the girls run up to us to display the shells and rocks they've found. At one point, as the girls surround us, one of us adults comments on the baby being chubby (which she is, as a baby should be) after which one of the girls looks at me and says, "you're kind of chubby." She wasn't trying to be rude or smart, she was just being bluntly observant as children are. As I looked at I her and considered an answer, I thought of the baggage of body image that women have carried for generations, and I thought, I don't want her to carry this baggage too. I want better for her.   I replied, "you know, being a little chubby is actually a good thing. Our bodies function better and it helps keep us warm." This deep lesson was probably lost on her as she s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Two Worlds, One Family

After reading that title, are you singing the Phil Collins song from Tarzan? I was. In my head. During prayer meeting. The theme for prayer that evening was the 3rd commandment; you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain . We bowed our heads and began praying around the circle. My dear friend sat beside me and prayed for her children and the children of our church. She prayed that they would never a know a day not loving the name of the Lord, that they would cling to Him and honour Him all the days of their lives. I went next. I prayed for my coworkers, so many of them living far, far from God, so many enslaved to sin. I prayed that they would know Jesus, honestly ask Him to forgive them, and then live the rest of their lives loving His name and bringing that Name glory. The same desire spurred our prayers, but the places we dwell in had a huge effect on how we prayed. And that's when that song from my childhood came to mind. The truth is that we are one family, my f...
Post a Comment
Read more