When Grief and Joy Intersect
The other day I was reading my Bible along with a study I'm doing on Habakkuk and going through the first chapter. I recently got a new Bible and it has cross-references, which my She Reads Truth one, unfortunately, doesn't have. Within a couple of verses, I had stumbled my way into the Psalms, following a cross-reference to Psalm 13.
I don't know if you've ever had this experience, where you feel like a chapter or verse in the Bible is so real to your life circumstances but it's like your breath gets stolen away. In a moment, I felt this lump in my throat, and my eyes welling up with tears. It was one of those chapters where you not only read the words but it's like you feel what the psalmist is feeling. You know that place, that lonely valley. You're revisiting those moments in life that lead to desperate, ugly cries out to the Lord:
Psalm 13
"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
My enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
for he has been good to me."
What strikes me so deeply about this Psalm isn't just the grief that is so obvious, it feels tangible - it's that choice to continue to trust.
Grief is one thing, and it hurts. But it's HARD to dust yourself off when grief gnaws at you day after day, and continue to find joy in the Lord. To continue to trust God despite the circumstances around you. I've been in this season where I see so many blessings around me, and so many great things going on in my life, but I live with this constant grief in the background. Some days it feels invisible, but there are days where it's real and it's sharp. There are days I'm living carefree, and others where I would just like to have a good cry in my bed before I get my day started. But here's the deal:
JOY IS A CHOICE.
What this Psalm is saying isn't that grief has to overcome us, but that sometimes it coexists with our joy in the Lord. You may not be able to remove grief from your life, but it doesn't have to overrun you. In this Psalm, I can feel the pain in David's circumstances, but I also feel that resolve to not let it overpower him and to continue to trust God, even though that choice itself can be painful.
I love how the Lord seems to work in themes in my life. The study I'm doing in Habakkuk right now is called "Even If," and the entire focus of the study is how we can still trust God even when our circumstances don't point to an obvious answer. In fact, there are times we have to trust that God is working when it feels like just the opposite of what we feel we "need" is happening in our lives. That doesn't mean he's not working. He is.
If you're feeling like you're in the pit of grief right now, I just want to encourage you.
Your savior, Jesus, is "a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering." (Isaiah 53:3).
You're not walking through this valley alone.
You are allowed to feel grief. You are allowed to walk in those seasons of sorrow. But remember to make the choice that despite every sorrow and feeling, you will trust in God's unfailing love. Rejoice in salvation. Lift God up in your life through worship, remembering how he has been good to you.
He's still good, and he can be trusted at the crossroads of our grief and joy.
For Further Study:
Romans 8:34-37 - 'Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the One who died, but even more, has been raised; He also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: Because of You we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us. '
Hebrews 7:24-25 - 'But because He remains forever, He holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore, He is always able to save those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them.'
Isaiah 55:9-12 - “For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return there without saturating the earth and making it germinate and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat, so My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.” You will indeed go out with joy and be peacefully guided; the mountains and the hills will break into singing before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. '
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