Acquainted with Grief

Isaiah 53:3-5

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

These are some well-know verses of scripture. But it wasn't until I became acquainted with Grief personally that they took on a new meaning. As you read my blogs, I sometimes personify Grief. It visits, pounces, hides, walks, knocks, and such. It gives me great comfort to know Christ knows this same Grief. He knows how heavy it is and the sorrow it brings. Ah, being understood is a great comfort in itself. To know a friend gets it is such a precious treasure. To have that Friend shoulder the load is an overwhelming blessing. 

My pastor recently shared the following three points in his sermon. They are power truths if we internalize them and make them a part of who we are.

Let God bear your sorrow.

The key word in this statement is LET. It requires releasing, allowing, being willing. There are times in my past when I have held on to my sorrow, refusing to be comforted. And it was like squeezing broken glass in my hand. Very damaging. The Lord already bear our grief and sorrow. Release it to Him. He is the Great Comforter. He will heal. Now I know some people don't want healing. I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes we take our pain on as our identity. Or we have nothing else of that person to hang on to, so we hang on to the pain. Sometimes we feel guilty. Guilty for failing the person somehow or guilty for being alive. We must remember we are not God. When we think we have the right to punish ourselves, for something He has already forgiven us for, we are thinking we know better than God Almighy and that is dangerous territory.

Let God be in control of your life.

This can be hard because sometimes when we trusted God, we got wounded. He means it for good, but it can make us scared to trust Him. But if we have trusted Him for salvation and eternal life, we can trust Him with this life too. When we surrender, when we let go, He can do things we could never imagine. This reminds me of a story of a little girl that had a necklace of fake pearls. As she matured, her daddy bought her a real pearl necklace. He then asked his daughter for her pearl necklace. It was her prized possession. Sadly, she clung to them. Each day her daddy asked her and each day she clung to her fake pearl necklace. Finally one day with tears running down her face, she gave her prized pearl necklace to her daddy who she loved very much. She was surprised and elated when through her tears she saw him bring out of his pocket the beautiful real pearl necklace. This is exactly how it is with God.

Find satisfaction in God

"God is always working in our lives to reconcile us to truth," my preacher said.To reconcile truth means to accept it and have peace about it. Not doing so leads to bitterness. Bitterness as in not forgiving or not accepting it, to not be okay with it. We must remember we were bought with a price. We are not our own. Once we are saved, we have been born again in to God's family. We belong to Him. He is to be the center of our universe, including what satisfies us. And when we finally let Him satisfy us, we find He is enough.