The Worship of Grief

The thought of my suffering and homelessness
    is bitter beyond words.
 I will never forget this awful time,
    as I grieve over my loss.  Lamentations 3:19-20

Within the past two months three mothers whom are either directly or indirectly known to me have lost a twenty-something child.  I cannot imagine the depths of grief that accompanies such a profound loss.  Additionally, my husband's aunt is readying herself to send another husband to eternity and a good friend just bid a final farewell to a difficult marriage.  Incredible loss. 

Ten years ago this month Grammy award winning singer/songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman lost his five-year-old adopted daughter, Maria, in a tragic car accident.  I mourned the Chapman's loss.  We were in the process of adopting from China (where Maria was from) and had already gone through three long years of waiting.  I knew the blood, sweat and tears poured into such an adoption.  I did not yet understand the incredible bond of love an adoptive parent is given for such a child, though I had some idea.  Multiple layers of emotions roiled within me.  "I can't even imagine," was all I could verbalize.  My mother-in-law, Joan, gave me some of the wisest words I think I'd ever heard to that point.  "It's because God has not yet given you that grace," was her response to me.  She knew that grace.  Eight years earlier she had laid to rest the body of her youngest son Neal, my brother-in-law, who had died from injuries sustained in a car accident.  

I've learned through my own experiences over time and the testimony of others I know that while loss isn't really quantifiable, it is common to us all.  We find a clue in the Genesis narrative as to how all this loss, pain and misery started: 

...in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.  Genesis 3:17b-19

You've heard it before.  It's old news right?  The bad news.  It started there in the garden when the curse upon creation was pronounced.  No longer would life be full, but rather, it would be filled with striving for what was unattainable.  The author of Ecclesiastes, most likely the venerable King Solomon, wrote:

 “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”  What do people get for all their hard work under the sun?  Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes.  Ecclesiastes 1:2-4  

A few verses later Solomon quite accurately sums up the human condition:

Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.  Ecclesiastes 1:8

The curse initiated not only death but frustration, heartache and loss as well...to each and every inhabitant of planet Earth.  It has the potential to perch us on the precipice of depression.  This is the stuff of grief.  So how do we deal with that?  

But what if grief were a platform for worship?  What if our anger and sadness over the losses of life agreed with God that all is not as it should be?  What if we offered our sadness and grief to Him, acknowledging that the world is broken, that we are broken and in need of His intervention because we can't change those losses no matter how hard we try?  And isn't that worship?  

Jeremiah has often been called "the weeping prophet."  He is author of two books in the Old Testament, one of them the book of Lamentations.  In that book he shows us what lamenting worship looks like:

The thought of my suffering and homelessness

    is bitter beyond words.

 

I will never forget this awful time,

    as I grieve over my loss.  Lamentations 3:19-20

He is honest about his circumstances.  True worship must be rooted in truth or it cannot be the real deal.  He agrees with God that life in a world dominated with sin stinks sometimes.  We can be honest and truthful about the pain of death and loss; that's part of the worship experience.  We agree that the world as it currently exists doesn't line up with the original plan of creation.  This honors God.

But Jeremiah doesn't stop there.  If we stop at the grief and anger in our journey of suffering we wind up wallowing in bitterness and miss out on the best God has for us.  Fortunately for us death is not the end.  Though Jeremiah doesn't know the work of the cross as we do, he still relates:

Yet I still dare to hope
    when I remember this:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
    His mercies never cease. 

Great is his faithfulness;
    his mercies begin afresh each morning.
 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
    therefore, I will hope in him!  Lamentations 3:21-24

Jeremiah recognizes that whatever he has lost in this life, he has still not lost what is most important  -  God is his inheritance and therefore he has hope.  Grief hasn't necessarily gone away, but it has made room for grace and hope. 

Don't ignore the pain in your life when you come to worship.  Bring it.  Let your worship be true.  Today I leave you with a link to the song Beauty from Pain released in 2005 from a band called Superchick.  I lived through some dark days listening to this song, worshiping with its raw, truthful emotion.  Worship the One who has overcome death and the grave; worship that He is still working through the pain. 

Beauty from Pain (Bridge and Chorus)

Here and I am at the end of me (at the end of me)

Trying to hold to what I can't see

I forgot how to hope

This night's been so long

I cling to your promise there will be a dawn

After all this has passed

I still will remain

After I've cried my last

There'll be beauty from pain

Though it won't be today

Someday I'll hope again

And there'll be beauty from pain

You will bring beauty from my pain