COVID-19 and the Gospel

Two weeks into the “Safer at Home” order, COVID-19 became more than news and statistics. I had been taking precautions (social distancing, face masks, sanitizing), making grocery store runs that felt surreal, telecommuting on Wednesdays and Thursdays. But that Monday morning, it became personal when I found out that a friend was hospitalized and intubated,...

Wedding Tears

Over 2 years ago, the tsunami of my father’s death crashed upon me, after which through God’s strength, I kicked my way to the surface, gasping for air. The water roared and foamed (Psalm 46:3) almost relentlessly that following year, sometimes wearying my soul and sapping my strength until all I could do was the...

David Powlison on Psalmic Faith versus Venting Anger at God

No Psalm encourages the venting of hostile anger like the self-help books encourage. [Don’t censor your feelings and language; say it like you feel it so you won’t be a hypocrite]. In the supposed vent your anger psalms—for example, Psalm 44—what comes through is how faith in who God is and what he promises cries...

The Valley of Vision

I find this particular Christmas season a paradox. It is the time to prepare Him room: Christ, the brightest light came down into the darkness of a fallen world so that his perfect life and atoning death would give life. I seek joy for this Gift of life, all the while sorrowful of the loss...

A Grief Sanctified: Through Sorrow to Eternal Hope

The below are excerpts from the chapter "The Grieving Process" in  J. I. Packer's A Grief Sanctified: Through Sorrow to Eternal Hope - Including Richard Baxter's Timeless Memoir of His Wife's Life and Death (Crossway, 2002)   What does it mean to grieve properly when one has lost a daughter, a son, a close companion, or the...

Links to songs that minister to me in my grief

Be Still My Soul -  by Katharina Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel, sung by the traditional acapella boy's choir, Libera Before You Call - by Daphne Rademaker (Vineyard), based on Isaiah 65:24 Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul - Words by Anne Steele, Music by Kevin Twit, performed by Indelible Grace Faith to Believe - by Shane and Shane He Will Hold...

The Pain of Searing Loss

In losing my father, I have come even more to appreciate Christ’s life and sacrifice on the cross. He was in perfect communion with his Father in heaven, yet humbled himself to come down to earth, taking the form of a servant to the point of death on a cross (Phil 2:7-8, see also John...

Grieving loved ones who are possibly unsaved

How Do You Deal with the Death of an Unsaved Loved One?  - John Piper answers Genesis 18:25 "Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" "And right now," I confessed, "right now the right thing feels very painful to us. Horribly painful. Maybe immobilizingly, paralyzingly painful with grief. We need to move to...

Ministry of the Word – Scripture that ministers to me in my grief

God is so amazing that He uses an ancient text to speak to us today.  2 Timothy 3:16 and 17 tell us that "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good...

Christian quotes on Grief and Sorrow

What the Lord expects from us at such seasons is not to abandon ourselves to unreasoning sorrow, but trustingly to look sorrow in the face, to scan its features, to search for the help and hope, which, as surely as God is our Father, must be there. In such trials there can be no comfort...