Scanning the images, I click on a grainy picture. “You’ve Got This” splashes across the screen along with a description of the tote bag’s contents. ‘Lollipops to help with nausea, snack items, and slippers will encourage the man in your life whether he is a cancer survivor or undergoing treatment.’

Sorrow spills from my eyes like rain from the sky on a spring morning. When trials and terrors force their way into the quiet spaces of life, how do you cope grief and sorrow? Where do you turn?

 

Hold to Faith

2 Kings 4:18-37 speaks of a mother’s sorrow when a Shunammaite woman experienced unspeakable tragedy. Her precious little boy died in her arms. I know her terror and remember trailing fingers across the tender arch of my daughter’s small foot. I can sense the panic rising in the young mother’s chest as she gazed at her child’s face. But the woman clung to faith. With the boy’s last exhale, she breathed out a request.

And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door upon him, and went out. Then she called to her husband, and said, “Please send me one of the young men and one of the donkeys, that I may run to the man of God and come back.”

So he said, “Why are you going to him today? It is neither the New Moon nor the Sabbath.”

And she said, “It is well.” Then she saddled a donkey, and said to her servant, “Drive, and go forward; do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you.” And so she departed, and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.

Another desperate mother might have sought a local priest or prophet, but this was a woman of discernment. She understood he was “a holy man of God”. (v. 9) More than that, this mother believed her dreams for motherhood would be resurrected and restored. In response to calamity, she replied twice, “It is well.”

Sorrow turns to joy and lament gives way to life when God’s glory breathes resurrection power in place of death’s providence.

Sorrow turns to joy and lament gives way to life when God's glory breathes resurrection power in place of death's providence. Click To Tweet

 

Intercede–Again and Again 

Personally invested in the child, Elisha prophesied the child’s birth. Imagine the prophet’s dismay when he learned of the boy’s death–a gift given, then removed. Had he been mistaken? A heart after holiness seeks the Lord even in the most unexplainable circumstances. Despite the boy’s limp form splayed on the bed, Elisha turned to prayer and the God of the impossible.

2 Kings 4:32-35 continues:

When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord. Then he got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out on him, the boy’s body grew warm. Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out on him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.

Do impossible circumstances loom large? Nothing is beyond the ability of God to heal, redeem, recover, or reconcile. Click To Tweet

 

Facing the Fire

And when we face the fires of this life, friend, and God doesn’t rescue us? May we be like the courageous young men–Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who said to murderous King Nebuchadnezzar, “Your threat means nothing to us. If you throw us in the fire, the God we serve can rescue us from your roaring furnace and anything else you might cook up, O king. But even if he doesn’t, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, O king. We still wouldn’t serve your gods…” (Daniel 3:18 MSG)

Bible Verses for Reflection

 

Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament,

but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy. (John 16:20)

 

 

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep,

so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.                                                                                                                    (1 Thess. 4:13-14)

 

Please note: It’s important to recognize the emotional, physical, and psychological components of grief and sorrow along with the spiritual components.

What are your best tips for managing grief and sorrow?

 

Peace and grace,
Tammy

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