By Grace, We Grieve.
Kaitlin Minter // UGA Student & Watty Worship Leader
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! If you and your family are anything like mine, you’ve had your tree up since Thanksgiving and you took your Christmas card picture months before that. And if you and your family are anything like mine, you also know that the pretty lights and picture perfect decorations only distract from the heaviness and grief that this season can bring with it. It only makes sense that as we so festively celebrate the Light of the world coming to us in a manger that the enemy would try and make us feel the darkest.
Merriam-Webster defines grief as a “deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement”. The American Psychological Association defines it as the “anguish experienced after significant loss”. Both are so cold and technical sounding. My favorite definition of grief is a quote from Shannon Barry that I found on Pinterest. It reads, “And when I turned to face grief, I saw that it was just love in a heavy coat”. The last couple years have been filled with grief. There have been several losses within our communities and our schools that have left so many heartbroken. Personally, I have lost both my father and my dear grandmother within the past year. But grief doesn’t have to just be death. Divorces, broken friendships, miscarriages, job loss, and many other big life changes cause grief too. I don’t know you and your grief, just as you don’t know me and mine. I will tell you however, some of the ways I have learned to hold grief in a way that doesn’t seem so heavy and how we can see it as a gracious gift from God. One of my favorite songs, “Son of Suffering”, by David Funk, describes Jesus as “acquainted with our grief”. Not just aware, but acquainted. Familiar. Involved. We see examples of this in the scripture. John 11 tells the story of Jesus’ dear friend Lazarus dying. Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, had come to Jesus to tell him that Lazarus was sick. John 11:4 says that, “When Jesus heard this he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it’”(ESV). About two days later, Jesus tells his disciples that Lazarus has died and they need to go to Bethany to see him. They arrived about 4 days after Lazarus had been put in his tomb. After Jesus tells Martha that Lazarus will rise again, he sees Mary and some of the other grieving Jews weeping over their loss. Verse 33 tells us that Jesus “was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled”. Then, the shortest verse in the whole Bible, John 11:35, “Jesus wept”.
If Jesus is acquainted with our grief, then our grief is acquainted with Jesus. He knew he would raise Lazarus from the dead. Yet his heart was still troubled and his eyes still wept. This emotion and response connected Jesus with those around him. They were united in their shared love for Lazarus and there was comfort in their community.
Jesus also experienced the grief of his own death. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he asked Peter, James, and John to remain with him, saying, “‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me” (Matthew 26:38). He pleaded with the Father that this cup, this fateful death, would pass from him and if it couldn’t, that the Father’s will be done. He was sweating, praying, and sorrow-filled as he waited for Judas’ betrayal. Not only was he grieving his own death, but he was also grieving the betrayal of one of his friends, his mother’s profound suffering as she watched her son’s death, the weight of all of eternity’s sin on his shoulders, and ultimately the Father forsaking him. Jesus was acquainted with our grief.
But by the grace of God, Jesus was forsaken so that we may never be.
Because of the beautiful gift of the gospel, those who believe will never have to be far from God and will never be forsaken. We are his sheep, and he is our Good Shepherd and nothing and no one can pluck us from the Father’s hand (John 10:27-30).
Our grief is a gift. It unites us so that we can find comfort in our community. It reminds us of our need for our Father. It is our receipt of love that gives proof that our relationships matter and that people matter. It connects us to our Savior and relates us to the Prince of Peace. It gives us the space to rest in the palm of the Father’s hand and the grace to heal.
So dear friend, I don’t know what you’re walking through or how that walk may feel. But I urge you to surround yourself with community, to rest in the Father, and to let yourself grieve.
Because it is by grace, we grieve.
Kaitlin Minter is a junior at UGA studying Communicative Sciences and American Sign Language, with hopes to become a speech therapist. Kaitlin is a worship leader at Watty and also helps lead the Barnes tribe. She loves all things pink and everything music related. When not in class or at the church, Kaitlin is probably working at The Bunny Hive or grabbing a nutrition tea!
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Kaitlin Minter // UGA Student & Watty Worship Leader