My Grief Q&A: What's with My Seasons of Sadness

In times of sadness, the psalmist expressive David was not ashamed to admit: "For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing." (Ps 31:10). In the midst of all his sadness and despair David cried out: "How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?" (Ps 13:2). I remember going through a deep, perpetual lowliness when I was going through the stigma of marital failure and fall out of dealings leading to its demise.

David knows about these times and perhaps some of you do too. He laments: "I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof" (Ps 102:7). Think of that. Have you sometimes ever seen yourself like that bird?

With no place to go or a space to fly away to?

Even Jesus could identify with a season of new adjustments and disorientation. He was heartbroken. He had the deepest rejection and sadness of any human being on the planet. "He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled" (Matt 26:37).

This was in the Garden of Gethsemane. He anticipated the experience and the cross, yet was already full of distress: "But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed" (Luke 12:50).

Psychological studies inform us that healthy people experience a broad range of feelings. They feel joy, happiness, sadness, anger, even fear. The key common thread: they do not get stuck with one emotion.

Jesus had a broad range of feeling and so will you.

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