How to begin to grieve?
Tears cascaded down my cheeks. I sobbed with my head in my hands and I needed to have it out with God! I dropped to my knees on a bed of fresh pine needles I’d found along my favorite wooded trail. My inward groaning erupted in a scream, God where are you?
Psalms 62:8b says to “Pour out your heart before Him,” meaning to pour out like milk from a glass pitcher; spill it out, pour forth. It was not only an exercise of casting all my fears (and anguish) before God, but an exercise of faith.
How would God answer the many questions I had. I tipped out of my heart anger, doubt, sadness, tears and questions.
It had been less than three years since I’d lost my father unexpectedly to a heart attack, but to lose my 40 year old younger brother the same way was too much for me to process. Both men appeared in good health–neither experienced any warning signs. Each loved by the family and enjoyed the same love of working outside, took their last breath in their homes a mile from the other and both carried the same name to their graves.
What kind of a mean joke was God playing on my family?
I realized it was foolish to try and hide anything from an all knowing, Maker and Creator God. So I “poured out” my thoughts into words.
There is freedom and great release in being brutally honest with God. He already knows if we are ticked.
Psalms 62:8 continues by saying, “Trust in Him at all times, O people; … God is a refuge for us.”
How can I believe one line of a verse and scrub the rest? I knew after I poured my heart out, I needed to let go and trust Him in faith. This time, as the verse says “at all times” included death.
This devo was first published at Christian Devotions Us but it crashed on their website.
Are you in need of grieving?
Listen in as I share a little more of my heart with you… Loss hurts!
I am so sorry for your loss and pain. Join me in this grief-coaching group over the holidays!
