Grief & Pain

I am still working on this book which is a study of grief and pain in the plan of God, based on the book of Lamentations.

The focal point of the first chapter - Coping with Grief is that we must always confess that the Lord is 'right', 'just' and 'righteous' in all His ways taken from verse 18 of Lam. 1. Four elements of coping with grief are given in this chapter.

1) In its Loneliness - "We are taught to pour out our complaint, sorrow, anguish to the God in whose presence we not only live but also suffer."

2)In its Causes - "It is not always necessary or even desirable to probe one's past for all the root causes of pain and suffering, but when we come to realize that some forms of suffering are retributive and are connected with previous sin nothing will assuage our pain or allow us to cope with grief until we acknowledge our guilt and repeated transgressions."

3)In its Purposes - One of the purposes of grief as given in this chapter is to turn us back to the Lord - a total reversal of one's field - a 180 degree turnaround to face God and His purposes.

4) In its confessions - That God is in the right and we are in the wrong. We instinctively seek human sympathy, but there is no help from men. We must appeal to our Lord to witness our great mental and emotional state of agitation and to turn to Him for comfort.