When Spiritual Platitudes Aren’t Enough

There was little that offered solace for my sorrow.

My wife and I learned halfway through our first pregnancy that our son was not going to survive. A medical condition which we had never heard of introduced an agony we had never known. The doctors told us that our son would continue growing in the womb but would not live after delivery. Jillian would endure the discomfort of pregnancy and the excruciating pain of labor. But we would not come home with our son, Eli.

In the midst of our grief, it initially felt like nothing would provide relief.

Looking to the Lord through prayer made my soul ache even more. How could I find refuge in the one who had the power to heal my son but chose not to? How could I ask him for anything when he had already refused our requests to protect our first child? Going to church only amplified my isolation and sorrow; the triumphant prayers defeated me and uplifting songs brought me further down. And while the Lord gave us friends with immense compassion, I often felt a chasm between what I was feeling and what they could understand.

Looking to the Lord through prayer made my soul ache even more. How could I find refuge in the one who had the power to heal my son but chose not to?

These experiences added guilt to my loneliness and pain. What kind of Christian was I? I was not doing the very thing I had told others to do for years as a missionary: turn to the Lord and his people for help. But grief did not relent. And my faith felt deficient as sorrow pulled me further into the depths.

But in the midst of the storm, God’s Word became a buoy for my soul.

Reading through Scripture gave me the opportunity to “meet” with others who had staggered along a similar path. I had already known these suffering saints, but I now saw them in a way like never before.

I met with the author of Lamentations. His book had been familiar to me because of the hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” The chorus is based on the most popular portion of the book, the only positive section in five grueling chapters. But these oft-quoted lines are surrounded by intense anguish and honest wrestling with God. Reading through such visceral struggle gave me language for my own languishing.

Reading through Scripture gave me the opportunity to “meet” with others who had staggered along a similar path.

I met with Heman, the writer of Psalm 88. His prayer spirals downward into further and further darkness. He cries out to God and asks him questions that sound less like prayer and more like confrontation. Yet the Lord put these troubling questions and unsettling statements in the Bible’s prayerbook. Psalm 88 offered validation to my own struggles in crying out to God.

I met with Job. Like the authors of Lamentations and Psalm 88, Job wrestled honestly with the Lord in his suffering. But he also had to endure the exasperation of his religious friends’ cold theology. I didn’t have to deal with a relentless onslaught of “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2) like he did. On the contrary, I was blessed with very thoughtful listeners. However, I was regularly confronted with a culture of trite platitudes and spiritual slogans that stung my soul. Job’s experience provided solidarity as I dealt with the lack of space that our culture makes for sorrow.

Jesus’ tears and questions enabled my own, showing beyond all doubt that strong faith weeps and wrestles with the Lord.

Finally, I met with Jesus. I encountered a sorrowful Savior who prayed “with loud cries and tears” (Hebrews 5:7). Jesus wept at his friend's funeral (John 11:35), felt shackling sorrow as he contemplated the cross (Matthew 26:38), and cried out to the Father as he was being crucified, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). Jesus’ tears and questions enabled my own, showing beyond all doubt that strong faith weeps and wrestles with the Lord.

Each of these places, and more, helped me see that the Lord invites us to worship through tears and pray without pretending. My prayer for Just Be Honest is that you will discover what I found: God’s Word speaks for your sorrow.