The Lord calls each of his children to walk the path of suffering (John 16:33). For my wife and me, that pathway has been the path of loss, as God gifted us with two sons, Titus and Noah, who were born with a rare brain disorder that shortened their lives. Noah passed at 4 ½ (2007-2011) and Titus at 8 ½ (2008-2016). For almost ten years, our lives were consumed with surgeries, long hospital stays, and around-the-clock care. Then, in the spring of 2024, my father suddenly passed from a pulmonary embolism, which, again, turned our world upside down.
In the margins of Lamentations are three words, “Noah’s funeral day.” I did not want to forget that this was that text God used to prepare my heart on that dreaded day. God has never failed to meet me in my grief, and Lamentations has been that sacred meeting ground. As I counsel others in their loss, I find myself returning to this book for comfort, guidance, and insight.
Jeremiah is the author of Lamentations. He was known as a writer of lament (2 Chronicles 35:25). For roughly forty years, he preached repentance until Jerusalem fell. Even though his prophecies anticipated barbaric devastation, nothing could prepare him for the horror of that day. Babylon killed warrior and virgin alike (Lamentations 1:15; 2:21). Burned into Jeremiah’s mind were images of children stumbling in the streets, infants expiring in their mother’s arms (2:12), and even cannibalism (4:10). Wrecked with shock and grief, Jeremiah cries, “Look and see if there is any pain like my pain…” and “My eyes fail because of tears, my spirit is greatly troubled; my heart is poured out on the earth…” (1:12; 2:11). Yet, his sorrow ultimately finds refuge in the goodness of God.
The following are four ways Lamentations aids us in helping the bereaved.
1. Help Them Express What Has Been Lost.
Grief is appropriate sorrow over a good gift God has recalled.1 This loss could be a friend who moves away, a spouse who dies from cancer, or a trust broken by betrayal. Sorrow is often the recognition that what we have lost was good, so we grieve its absence. Grief is an expression of love. Therefore, it is good to grieve (Ecclesiastes 7:2, 4).
Grief arrives like a bullet train but takes a lifetime to comprehend. In anguish, Jeremiah expresses what has been lost. Jerusalem’s fall has resulted in the loss of status (1:1), relationships (1:2), security (1:3), joy (1:4), reputation (1:6), the sense of God’s presence (2:17), and much more. Each loss has ripped gaping holes in Jeremiah’s heart, so he pours out his grief in gut-wrenching poetry. Following this pattern, I often ask grieving counselees to journal what they have lost. In the next session we spend unhurried time recounting the loss.
2. Help Give Them Biblical Vocabulary for Their Pain.
The Scriptures have always given a voice to our pain. Jeremiah describes himself as physically wasting away (Lamentations 3:4). He feels like the walking dead (3:6). His grief is like a spiritual dungeon where God hears none of his prayers (3:8). He feels trapped in a maze and intoxicated with sorrow (Lamentations 3:9, 15). This is not unlike Job comparing his grief to being repeatedly knocked down by billows, unable to catch his breath (Job 9:18).
When one considers that sin, death, and suffering are foreign intruders to God’s good and perfect creation, these emotions are appropriate (Romans 8:22; 1 Corinthians 15:26). We were not made for suffering. Therefore, grief presses the bounds of human language, and our soul can hardly bear the weight (Lamentations 3:17-20).
When counseling loss, it is good to sit with the counselee and walk them through the language of lament. Assign them homework that gives words to their loss. Remind them that Jesus himself was called, “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). List out the losses Jesus experienced in his earthly life. Jesus likely used Psalm 16 to express grief and hope while suffering in Gethsemane and Psalm 22 when he cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” on the cross.
As we guide those we counsel to verbalize their grief, we must be careful to follow the caution of Scripture. Many counselors foolishly encourage the counselee to vent to God and “tell him how you really feel!” But the Bible says the opposite. We are cautioned against accusing God (James 1:13), speaking rashly to God (James 1:19), or being hasty and impulsive in our prayers (Ecclesiastes 5:2). In Lamentations 3:26-29, Jeremiah advises grieving with humility and reverence. This could be because, as a young grieving prophet, he charged God with deceit and was rebuked (Jeremiah 15:18-19). We can be honest with God about our pain and loss without being irreverent. Humility is key to grieving well.
3. Help Them Recall the Goodness of God.
Jeremiah’s honest lament is not a dead end. He has a destination. Lamentation’s chiastic center is chapter three. Here, he takes charge of his thoughts and says, “This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.” The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him” (Lamentations 3:21-24).
“This I recall” is a deliberate exercise of faith. It parallels “put on” (Ephesians 6:11), “stand firm therefore” (Ephesians 6:14), “cast your anxiety on him” (1 Peter 5:7), “but as for me, I shall sing…” (Psalm 59:16), “set your mind” (Colossians 3:2), “consider him” (Hebrews 11:11; 12:3), “fixing our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2), etc. It is a deliberate decision to focus our mind on the goodness of God. It safeguards us from fleshly despair and points our feet in the direction of biblical hope. Jeremiah knew there was no silver bullet or shortcut to grief. He must lift his gaze from the ashes and “recall [God’s character] to mind.”
How did he recall God’s goodness? Looking his grief in the eyes, Jeremiah begins verse 25, 26, and 27 by asserting God’s goodness. Verses 25 begins, “The Lord is good…” Verse 26 follows, “It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord.” And verse 27, “It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth” (v 27). Since God is good, then waiting in grief and bearing the yoke of grief is also good. It is “more precious than gold which is perishable,” and will “result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7).
At the right time, the counselor can ask the counselee, “How have you seen the goodness of God in your loss?” The counselee can be taken to Psalms 31 and shown how David turns from his grief and terror to express gratitude to God for his faithfulness (Psalm 31:14, 19-20). In the face of untold grief, Jesus trusted the goodness of his Father. He endured the cross for the joy set before him, “so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:3).
4. Help Them Receive Their Loss with Humility
In verses 28-32, Jeremiah assumes the posture of humility. He exhorts the griever to “sit alone and be silent since He [God] has laid it on him.” The counselor should use this text with care. Lamentations is primarily about grief due to judgment. Nevertheless, the principle of humbly receiving loss from God’s sovereign hand has universal application.
What does it mean to receive loss with humility? It means the bereaved must come to acknowledge these three elements:
- Acknowledge that the loss has passed through God’s sovereign hands.
While death, loss, and suffering are a direct result of the fall, nothing happens apart from God’s sovereign degree. This means that God sovereignly decrees even what he morally opposes (Genesis 50:20; Judges 14:4; Is 45:7; Ecclesiastes 7:14; Acts 27-28). After bearing witness to injustice, fraud, and oppression, Jeremiah states, “Of these things the Lord does not approve. Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it” (Lamentations 3:35–37)? God’s sovereignty extends even to what grieves him.
The bereaved must take to heart two great truths. First, Satan is the author of sin and man’s rebellion perpetuates it. Second, God stands sovereign over all. This is glorious news! This guarantees that evil will not have the final word (Ezekiel 28:15). It means that no loss is a tragedy devoid of meaning and purpose. Rather, this loss is supercharged with kingdom-glory! Humble acceptance of God’s sovereignty is essential in not being crushed by the yoke of grief. Thomas Boston (who buried six of his ten children) states, “Affliction does not rise out of the dust or come to men by chance; but it is the Lord who sends it, and we should own and reverence His hand in it!”
- Acknowledge that we are not entitled to the good that we lost.
After my father was pronounced dead in the emergency room, I remember driving home in disbelief. In the kindness of God, an overwhelming wave of gratitude washed over me. Not very many sons are blessed to have a father like I had. I did not deserve my father and had nothing but praise to God for him. We are all pardoned criminals, made sons of the King. There is nothing we have that we did not receive by sheer grace (1 Corinthians 4:7).
Cain and King Saul felt entitled to what they lost. This prideful spirit devolved into bitterness and severe instability. Job’s wife also felt entitled to the children she lost. She was ready to curse God and die. But Job reminded her, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity” (Job 2:9-10). We hold all precious things with an open hand and yield to God the right to give and take according to his wisdom (Job 1:21).
Sarah Edwards modeled this humility when writing her daughter, Esther, shortly after the sudden death of Jonathan Edwards. “What shall I say? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands on our mouths! The Lord has done it. He has made me adore his goodness, that we had him so long. But my God lives; and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left us! We are all given to God, and there I am, and love to be.”
- Acknowledge that Christ-conformity is the highest good by which all loss finds its purpose.
Lesser values must give way to the greater. Suffering is only “worth it” if a greater value is in play. Paul has the audacity to look at our suffering and call it “momentary, light affliction” (2 Corinthians 4:17). This is because he is comparing it to the glory of Christ that awaits (cf., Romans 8:18; Colossians 3:4). The beatific vision—our soul-satisfying, face to face reunion with Christ—will resolve all grief.
Anticipating this satisfaction, the Psalmist says, “As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake” (Psalm 17:15). This satisfaction with Christ is the ultimate alleviation of grief that results from Christ having reconciled all things to himself (Colossians 1:2). It is what finally dries Rachel’s tears and causes Jeremiah’s sleep to be pleasant (Jeremiah 31:15-16; 26). This satisfaction in Christ is the only durable hope in times of grief. It is what distinguishes Christian grief from worldly grief (1 Thessalonians 4:13). And it flows from our Savior who was “grieved to the point of death” so that we can experience the “fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11; Mark 14:34). “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5). We long for his return when every tear is wiped away, all things are made new, and “so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17; Revelation 21:4-5).