There are moments when sorrow feels like water rising around us, slow and relentless. We try to hold ourselves above it, but grief is heavier than we expected, and we find ourselves wondering if there is a bottom to this.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning." Lamentations 3:17, 21–23 (ESV)
Jeremiah wrote Lamentations in the wreckage of Jerusalem, surrounded by loss that was total and unmistakable. He did not rush past it or dress it up. He named it plainly: "I have forgotten what happiness is." And yet, from that very depth, he called something to mind. Not a feeling. Not a circumstance. A truth about God that grief had not changed.
The steadfast love of the Lord does not waver with our moods, our losses, or our worst days. His mercies are not given out to those who are holding it together. They are new every morning, and that includes the mornings we wake up with a weight on our chest we cannot name.
"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Psalm 147:3 (ESV)
This is the God we come to. Not a God who asks you to arrive undamaged. The One who heals is the very One who welcomes the brokenhearted. Jesus himself was "a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3), which means he does not watch our pain from a distance. He has walked into it himself, and he has walked out the other side.
So we do not lose heart." 2 Corinthians 4:8, 16 (ESV)
Hope in Christ is not the same as the absence of sorrow. It is the stubborn, Spirit-given conviction that your sorrow does not have the final word. The resurrection of Jesus is God's own declaration that death, grief, and loss are not ultimate. They are real. They are heavy. But they are not the end.
If you are in a hard season, you do not need to pretend otherwise. Bring your grief to Christ, the one who carries what we cannot. His mercy is enough for today.
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Pastor and a member of MCF-Cebu
