“Help. My heart is broken.”
This is one of the most common refrains in my counseling ministry. There are many causes: love unrequited, jobs lost, dreams quashed, spouses and children taken. No matter its roots, the pain is unbearably similar for its sufferers. And the question that hangs over it all is this: “Now what?”
Weep Well
Grief is an act as well as a feeling. When hearts are broken, cheeks should be wet. I wish it weren’t true, but it is. There is something about weeping that is incredibly scary. It’s a vulnerable act that floods our thoughts and feelings, leaving us fatigued. Little wonder then that people avoid it like the plague, or feel that they need to make an excuse for it.
But Scripture itself does not take such a negative view on mourning. God does not tell his children to “dry it up!” Rather, God stores our tears in his bottle (Psalm 56:8). In an ancient, arid land where bottles were not a dime a dozen, only precious things were kept in bottles. Even more, God himself weeps and makes no apology for it (Luke 19:41–44; John 11:35). When God finds his heart hurting, his cheeks are not dry, and you should not be ashamed if yours aren’t either.
It’s not enough to merely give our emotions vent; they need to be shepherded (Psalm 120:1; 130:1). Christians are not merely those who weep, but those who weep well. It is not true that our stress, sadness, anger, and negative emotions just need an emotional outlet to release the pressure. This “hydraulic” view of the affections often does more harm than good — before we know it, we can barely put our emotional kettle on the burner before the whistle begins to wail for relief.
Instead, the key is to marry an emotional outlet with hope. This does not mean that we always, at every single moment, need to sustain a conscious feeling of hope alongside our grief — God makes room in Scripture for passages like Psalm 88 and Job 3. He does not ask the believer to take a Pollyanna view of the believing life. But Paul reminds the Thessalonians that their grief is different from a mere emotional outpour (1 Thessalonians 4:13). It is grounded in the truth of the gospel which is the spring of hope and life itself (Romans 15:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:14–17). Gospel hope is the foundation of healthy grief. We may not always see it or focus on it, but it is there, and it will rise again (Psalm 51:12).
Go to Prayer
Grief needs prayer. It is the communion of our souls with their Maker and Sustainer. The Psalter is not just a collection of ditties for believers but a living example of the prayers of the faithful. Praying isn’t about changing God’s mind but submitting the most earnest desires of our hearts to him, and trusting his stewardship with them, even when those desires are aborted.