Lately, it seems I’ve been having a lot of conversations with folks about the things we take for granted. Maybe it’s the use of a limb after you’ve been through an injury or a surgery. Maybe it’s a place you always enjoyed going but you didn’t really pay much attention until it closed. Maybe it’s the presence of a person in your life that you weren’t expecting to say goodbye to just yet. I can’t help but think of Joni Mitchell laying the truth out there to a tune that seems a little too light for the sentiment it expresses: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” It sure does, Joni.
That feeling she describes, that awareness of what we had when it’s no longer there, is grief. Grief takes all kinds of forms and can arise from all sorts of situations. Often we think about grief in relation to sadness, a kind of awareness of what we cannot have back. Sometimes grief looks more like anger, a reaction to the injustice that what was mine is not any longer. Sometimes grief looks like numbness, as we struggle to process exactly what it is that we are feeling in the moment. And grief, no matter its size or shape, always matters. It affects us, and if we don’t find a way to handle our grief, you can be sure that your grief will handle you.
As I’ve been having these conversations with folks, I’ve been reminded that Jesus—the Son of God who took on flesh to live with us—experienced grief too. Jesus wept. His friend Lazarus had died. Mary and Martha confronted Jesus with something between anger and despair: if you had been here, our brother would not have died. The whole town had come out to mourn. And Jesus, seeing the enormity of grief around him, wept. He knew that in a few short minutes he would be calling Lazarus back out of the tomb. He knew that he had power over the grave. But in that moment, rather than offering reassurances or fixing things straightaway, Jesus chose to grieve along with his friends. Because something had been lost, and the awareness of that loss hurt.
Jesus weeps with us as well. For big things and for small things. For things that will be better next week and for things that will never be the same on this side of Heaven. He knows what it is to have loss, and he holds our hurt close to his heart. He does not expect us to put on a brave face or pretend our hurt isn’t real. At the same time, we have an assurance: the same wounded hands that hold us in our grief hold the promise of restoration. Martin Luther once wrote “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.” Grief is real, but so too is grace. They do not cancel each other out—instead we live in the tension between grief and grace; between hurt and hope. If you are feeling that tension a little more in these days, may you be held by a peace that passes all understanding. And may you trust that the wounded hands of love that hold you will never let you go.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Will Starkweather
Last modified: August 27, 2026