In Christ, my grief ends in glory

Lord, perhaps we all need a good cry right now. We’ve collectively walked through many losses in the last two years. Perhaps many wordless prayers have become sighs rather than songs. Maybe Job’s words ring true…

Like Job, please help us to share every honest emotion with You in our grief and loss, as lament. Prompt us to remember who You are and who we are in Christ, in our “tear-full” moments. As we turn to You, turn our hearts to a “praise interruption,” remembering that Jesus is intimately acquainted with grief.

Into my loss, You alone are my righteousness

Jesus, by Your perfect and sinless life, and by Your death and shed blood as the holy and spotless Lamb of God, I am forever reconciled to our Father. There is no more atoning I need to do. So, my losses are not Your punishment or my penance for sin. I have peace with You. 

Hallelujah, what a Savior.

Guilty, vile, and helpless, we;
spotless Lamb of God was he;
full atonement! can it be?
Hallelujah, what a Savior!

(“Man of Sorrows! What a Name,” Bliss, P., 1875)

It was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief (Is. 53:10 ESV).

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1 ESV, emphasis added).

Praise interruption: Jesus is alive!

As I grieve and mourn every loss, turn me to You, Lord Jesus. 

You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? (Ps. 56:8 ESV).

You are alive, resurrected, and victorious over sin and death! 

Lifted up was he to die,
“It is finished!” was his cry;
now in heav’n exalted high:
Hallelujah, what a Savior!

I praise You that each loss is bringing me into deeper dependence on You in order to live each day…each hour. 

It’s so easy to fix thoughts inward onto lost desires and plans. We are all so easily tempted to idolatry, to self-pity, to forgetting Your abiding love for us, rather than turning to You with our pain.

In Christ, I can walk by the Spirit, in my grief and losses

Walk by the Spirit,

and you will not

gratify the desires of the flesh (Gal. 5:16 ESV).

Oh Lord, please help me to honestly tell You about all of my losses, but also to see and praise You exalted on Your throne. Help me to look upward and outward to You. Help me to look to Christ, because I am in Christ as I grieve losses.

Please help me remember Your loving plans for me as I walk by Your indwelling Holy Spirit.

Into my sorrow, remind me of the hope You’ve given to me as I walk through this…in Your cocooning love.

That according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being…to know the love of Christ…that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:14, 19 ESV).

Praise interruption: In Christ? My grief ends in glory!

Today, I may sing praise to You through tears, as Your people have done throughout the ages, with inevitable losses of this fallen world. But, one day, I will visibly see You and sing praise to You in glory, when all sin, and all resulting loss and tears will be gone!

Grief ends in glory!

Until that glorious day, please renew my hope and trust in You, glorious and exalted King Jesus. 

Hallelujah, what a Savior!

When he comes, our glorious King,
all his ransomed home to bring,
then anew this song we’ll sing:
Hallelujah, what a Savior!

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us (Rom. 8:18 ESV).

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth! (Ps. 108:5 ESV)

In the name of my glorious Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, amen.

Material adapted from Singing the Gospel to Job: Finding Hope in Suffering, Lauri A. Hogle, Copyright © 2022

Gospel-centered resources in our loss and grief

Dear sister in Christ, I’m just beginning to understand what it is to walk in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. We suffer…with Him, the One who suffered everything…for those who trust in Him for salvation. Jesus understands every tear we shed and He is with us as we live through this world’s pain, all the way to glory. For His glory alone.

This week, the playlist gift takes us on a “my grief ends in glory” journey in song. We sing-pray our grief to the Lord, sing of His glory, and find renewed hope and trust in our glory to come.

I’m praying that any tiny bit of the music, prayer, and Scriptures that He’s giving me as I suffer loss will also point you to our Savior, our Man of Sorrows. If these might bless you (or another sister in Christ walking through loss in suffering), the links are below.