Remember when you were slaves in Egypt and I rescued you with my mighty hand…
Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other…
Remember my body and blood that has been shed for you…
I sat with a young woman as she and I spent another hour together recalling the life events on her Grief Tower — the hard parts of her life that had stacked up over the past two decades. Her Grief Tower Timeline was filled with some of the most severe, heartbreaking traumas of anyone I had worked with. And like most missionaries (and missionary kids) I’ve worked with, as she recalled each trauma, she also quickly dismissed its severity with spiritual platitudes.
But God used it…
But I can see how it worked out for good…
But God is good…
It’s all part of His plan…
She was deeply afraid to admit and articulate the gravity of the things that had happened and the depth of grief and heartbreak she had experienced. It was as if a steel shield covered those wounds and any attempt to uncover and grieve them was deflected by pointing to a nice spiritual bandaid plastered over the top.
This coping method isn’t unique to her – I see it all the time, especially in the missions world.
I wonder if it is instilled in us that the correct, spiritual answer is one that dismisses the hard and proclaims the good?
In my teenage years as a missionary kid, I certainly remember the admiration I received for such faith-filled answers.
I wonder if deep down, we feel the need to protect God’s reputation, advocating for his goodness by diminishing hurt?
I certainly don’t want anyone to question God’s goodness because of my hard stories.
Yet as I read the stories of trauma, grief, and heartbreak in the Bible, I don’t see a God who says, “just ignore the hard that happened and focus on the fact that I used it.”
I see a God who says,
Remember how hard it was…
Remember how painful that was…
Remember how desperate you were…
Don’t forget the depths of despair, the intensity of the heartache, the gravity of the pain.
Because if you forget, you also don’t remember how big I am.
Holy Remembrance of Hard Things
Over and over, God commands his people to remember how hard, dark, sad, and ugly things were. And then, to celebrate the incredible contrast of his love, goodness, and might that rescued them from adversity of all kinds.
The remembrance we’re called to isn’t a “focus on the positive” outlook that skims past the hard and onto the happy ending.
In order to truly understand the depths from which we have been saved, we have to admit how deep those depths were.
The praise for how the Lord has rescued us with his mighty hand is so much greater when we give weight to the agony from which we were rescued.
The weight of the cross isn’t so significant if we downplay the suffering. I’m so grateful that the Bible gives us a framework for navigating these paradoxical truths.
Many of the psalms of David guide us through this process:
Cry Out to God
Why…?
I felt so…
Where were you when…?
How…?
Did you…?
Ask for What You Need
Show me where you were
Comfort me
Help me forgive
Remind me of your goodness
Show me how you’ve used that
Cling to His Character
I know you are… (good, kind, gentle, loving, caring, etc.)
I know you didn’t (leave me, forget me, etc)…
I trust that you…
This framework guides us through processing hardships in a way that doesn’t skip over the big emotions, questions, and outcries. Yet it also doesn’t leave us in that pit but holds equal space for us to remember who God is and how he’s proven himself faithful in the past.
As we unstack the tower of grief that has grown throughout our lives and help others to do the same, let us make room to see how big and good God is by not downplaying how hard and painful life can be. By confronting the depth of our wounds, we create space for the extraordinary grace and goodness of God to be fully experienced.
If you want to learn more about how to unstack your “Grief Tower” from a Biblical perspective, check out the What Made That Feel So Hard?: Bible Study Guide that pairs with Lauren’s latest book What Made That Feel So Hard?: The Unstacking Method. Both are available on Amazon.
This article was originally posted on A Life Overseas Blog, Feb 2025.
