Good Grief: Walking Into the Darkness Toward Healing

Jul 19, 2026

Devotional

Day 1: Tears Collected in Heaven’s Bottle

Grief finds its voice when tears flow freely. David’s raw cries in Psalm 56 remind us God counts every sacred drop. The pastor’s decades-long struggle to weep for his father reveals how suppressed sorrow delays healing. Like rain softening hardened soil, tears carve pathways for divine comfort. Washington Irving called tears “messengers of unspeakable love” – not weakness, but power. Healing begins when we stop numbing pain and let lament breathe. [33:31]

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”
(Psalm 56:8, NLT)

Reflection: Where have you resisted tears as “unspiritual”? What loss might God be inviting you to honor through tender mourning today?

Day 2: Sitting in the Ashes Before Rebuilding

Job’s friends got it wrong, but his choice to grieve in the rubble was right. Replacing losses too quickly – like getting a new pet after one dies – bypasses necessary sorrow. The Psalms model reviewing losses through honest prayer, not rushing to solutions. Just as David named Absalom’s betrayal, we must inventory what’s gone before seeking replacements. Healing requires staring at the empty space. [35:26]

“So Satan left the Lord’s presence, and he struck Job with terrible boils from head to foot. Job scraped his skin with a piece of broken pottery as he sat among the ashes.”
(Job 2:7-8, NLT)

Reflection: What practical distraction or quick fix have you used to avoid sitting with a loss? How might “scraping sores among ashes” look for you this week?

Day 3: The Wailing Wall of Shared Sorrow

Mourning alone starves the soul. When two brothers knelt at their sister’s deathbed, shared tears became holy water. The Western Wall’s communal lamentations show grief thrives in togetherness. Romans 12:15’s call to “weep with those who weep” transforms isolation into bonded healing. Like vinegar mingled with oil, private and corporate grief anoint each other. [40:48]

“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”
(Romans 12:15, NIV)

Reflection: Whose grief have you avoided to protect your heart? Who might need your presence in their “wailing wall” moment this month?

Day 4: Unearthing Buried Toxins of the Soul

Burying grief poisons like leaking nuclear waste. The pastor’s hazardous materials analogy warns against entombing sorrow. Psalm 86’s plea – “I am afflicted and needy” – models bringing contamination to light. Just as counselors help excavate childhood wounds, God specializes in detoxifying buried pain. Healing begins when we stop pretending time erases damage. [46:42]

“Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer; answer me, for I need your help. Protect me, for I am devoted to you. Save me, for I serve you and trust you. You are my God.”
(Psalm 86:1-2, NLT)

Reflection: What toxic grief have you sealed underground? How might “bending down” in vulnerable prayer begin your decontamination?

Day 5: Chasing Dawn Through Endless Night

Jerry Sitzer’s choice to walk toward darkness – not race the setting sun – mirrors Psalm 23’s valley. Ecclesiastes’ “time to heal” isn’t passive waiting but active trekking. Like Elijah resting after Carmel’s fire, recovery requires pacing, not deadlines. Dawn comes when we stop outrunning night and let grief’s journey transform us. [52:18]

“A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak.”
(Ecclesiastes 3:7, NLT)

Reflection: Where have you demanded “instant sunrise” in your grief? What small step toward embracing the dark path could you take today?

Sermon Summary

Good grief begins with Charlie Brown’s famous lament, “good grief,” and then turns toward the Psalms to ask what kind of grief destroys and what kind of grief restores. Grief is intense sorrow caused by loss, and lament is the passionate expression of that sorrow before God. First Thessalonians 4 says grief can happen with hope or without hope, so the issue is not whether grief comes, but how grief is carried.

The Psalms of Lament give a biblical pattern for grief management: cry out to God, state the complaint, ask for help, and choose to trust his faithfulness. Psalm 5 shows David groaning and crying out before the Lord, not hiding pain, not pretending strength, and not burying sorrow under religious performance. Jesus calls mourners blessed because mourners can be comforted, and the lack of grieving often becomes the lack of healing. Tears are not weakness; Psalm 56 says God collects them in his bottle, and Psalm 126 says tears sown before God can become songs of joy.

The loss itself must be reviewed, not simply replaced. The Psalms do not rush past pain, and Job’s losses were not immediately filled back in by God. Replacement can become avoidance, whether the loss is a pet, a relationship, a job, health, or a loved one. Grief needs space to name what was lost before wisdom can return.

The people of God also grieve in community. Psalm 74 is a communal lament over the destruction of the temple, and the Wailing Wall pictures people bringing tears before God together. Romans 12 says to weep with those who weep, and that cannot happen in isolation. Solitude has a place, but grief was never meant to be a lone ranger journey.

God heals, not time. Time can dull pain, distract the mind, or bury memories, but buried grief acts like hazardous material leaking into the water table of the soul. Psalm 86 asks God for help because God preserves and restores. Psalm 77, Ecclesiastes, and Jeremiah show that recovery takes time, even though time itself does not heal.

The walk into darkness becomes the road toward sunrise. Jerry Sitzer’s story shows that loss cannot be outrun by chasing the setting sun; healing came as he walked east, fully into the darkness, trusting that dawn would come. Jesus, the risen Son, gives light in the valley of the shadow of death, and grief placed before him can become a place of endurance, depth, and recovery.

Key Takeaways

1. Tears belong in faithful lament. The Psalms do not treat tears as an embarrassment to spiritual maturity. Tears become prayer when grief is brought honestly before God instead of buried beneath a forced strength. Psalm 56 gives wounded people a tender picture: God keeps track of sorrows and collects tears, meaning pain is neither wasted nor ignored. [33:31]
2. Loss must be reviewed, not replaced. Replacement can look practical, but it can also become a way of refusing to face what has actually been lost. Biblical lament gives sorrow permission to name the empty chair, the broken relationship, the lost health, or the death that changed everything. Wisdom often returns only after grief has been allowed to tell the truth. [34:57]
3. Grief needs community, not isolation. Communal lament keeps sorrow from collapsing inward on itself. When others weep with the grieving, suffering is shared without being solved too quickly. Community becomes a holy place where the hurting receive comfort and the comfortable learn how to enter another person’s pain. [40:48]
4. God heals what time only dulls. Time can make pain quieter, but quiet pain is not always healed pain. Buried grief can leak into other parts of life like hazardous material seeping into the water table. Healing begins when grief is exposed before God, because only God can restore what time can merely cover over. [45:53]
5. Recovery takes real spiritual time. God heals, but healing still has seasons. Jeremiah’s promise of restoration came to exiles who had to live through a long captivity, and that matters for every person wanting pain to end quickly. Recovery is not denial of faith; recovery is the slow strengthening of the soul under God’s care. [49:26]
## [49:26]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[21:48] - Opening and Family Reflections
[22:48] - Peanuts and Good Grief
[24:14] - Defining Grief and Lament
[25:43] - Grieving With Hope
[26:50] - The Pattern of Lament Psalms
[27:36] - Feel and Express Feelings
[34:57] - Review Loss, Do Not Replace
[38:25] - Grieve in Community
[44:49] - God Heals, Not Time
[47:52] - Take Time to Recover
[50:32] - A Walk Into the Darkness
[53:54] - Bringing Grief to Prayer
[55:04] - Invitation to Trust Jesus

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading

1 Thessalonians 4:13
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” [25:43]

Psalm 56:8
“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” [33:31]

Psalm 126:5
“Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!”

Romans 12:15
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

Psalm 5:1-2
“Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray.” [28:33]

Psalm 74:1-2
“O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage! Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.”

Psalm 86:1-2
“Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my life, for I am godly; save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God.”

Jeremiah 30:17
“For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the LORD, because they have called you an outcast: ‘It is Zion, for whom no one cares!’”

Observation questions

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, what two ways of grieving are placed side by side, and what is the difference between them? [25:43]
In Psalm 5:1-2, what words show how openly David brings his pain to God?
What pattern shows up again and again in the lament psalms: what does the grieving person do first, what do they say next, what do they ask for, and how do they end? [26:50]
What are the five practical steps for handling grief in a healthy and biblical way? [50:11]

Interpretation questions

If Scripture says believers should not grieve “as others do who have no hope,” what does grieving with hope actually look like in real life? [26:17]
Psalm 56:8 says God keeps count of tears. What does that suggest about how God responds to hidden sorrow, long sorrow, or sorrow that feels hard to explain? [33:31]
Psalm 74 is a communal lament, and Romans 12:15 says to weep with those who weep. Why does shared grief often bring a kind of healing that private grief alone does not? [38:25]
If God heals and time does not, how should a person think about slow recovery? Why might a long season of healing still be a sign of God’s care rather than God’s absence? [49:26]

Application questions

Is there a loss in life that has been carried quietly without really being named before God? What would it look like this week to speak that grief honestly to him instead of staying guarded? [27:36]
Tears are not weakness before God. Is it easier to stay busy, stay strong, or stay numb than to mourn? What tends to shut down honest grief in life? [34:27]
Loss needs to be reviewed, not just replaced. Is there any area where life has tried to move too quickly past a loss—a relationship, health, work, a loved one, or something else? What might slow, honest review look like there? [34:57]
Grief was not meant to be carried in isolation. Who are the safe people that could help bear sorrow right now? If no one comes to mind, what makes it hard to let others in? [40:48]
Buried grief can leak into other parts of life. Has unresolved sorrow shown up as irritability, withdrawal, fear, exhaustion, or trouble trusting God? Where might grief be surfacing indirectly? [45:53]
Recovery takes time. Is there impatience with the pace of healing, or pressure to “be over it” by now? What would it mean to give God room to heal at his pace? [47:52]
Walking into darkness rather than outrunning it is often the road toward sunrise. In this season, what might “walking east” look like—one honest prayer, one conversation, one act of trust, or one step toward community? [50:32]

Sermon Clips

66s

#DontBuryGrief

“``Over time, you can suppress your feelings but not the results and the impact of those feelings of grief that are not dealt with. When it comes to death, some people try to bury their feelings along with their loved ones. we are we are not supposed to bury our grief. We need to expose them so that God can heal. Now decades ago, industrialists would take would take hazardous material, they take it off to a far off place, and they would bury it. And they thought, problem solved. It's buried. Then they found out years later what happened. The hazardous materials leaked into the water tables, infecting the crops, killing animals. You just can't bury that kind of stuff. Grief is like hazardous material to for us. We just can't bury it because it will prop up someplace else and contaminate other parts of our lives. So we need to deal with our grief.”

38s

#GodHealsNotTime

“However, however, exposing our grief and vulnerability to others may feel like a walk into the darkness. It is for me to grieve with others. It's like a walk into the darkness. Step four, know that God heals, not time. So give your grief to God. Step four of unhealthy grief management says, time heals all wounds. Have you heard that before? Time heals all wounds. Biblical biblical grief management says, God heals not time.”

41s

#TimeTakesToHeal

“Elijah required recovery time after his battle with the prophets of Baal. Paul required recovery time after being shipwrecked. Now remember this, however. Remember that time does not heal, but it takes time to heal. Time doesn't heal, but it does take time to heal. So give yourself some time. Give yourself some space to recover. However, giving our grief the time to heal may seem like an eternal walk into the darkness. Like, when is it gonna end?”

53s

#TearsAreHealing

“The power of tears. So when grieving, let's feel and express our feelings. It's a step toward healing. But oftentimes, feeling and expressing our feelings can seem like a walk in the dark. I mean, it still kinda feels that way for me. It's hard to grieve and mourn even today, but thanks be to god, I'm I'm better than I used to be. So feel and express our feelings. Step two, review our loss and not just replace it. Review our loss and not just replace it. Step two of unhealthy grief management says this, replace your loss. Whereas healthy biblical grief management says we need to review our loss and not just replace it.”

42s

#ReviewDontReplace

“We need to stop scurrying around and spend more time reflecting on our loss in a healthy manner. We shouldn't be in a hurry just to replace the loss. We need to spend adequate time grieving over the loss. However, reviewing our losses may feel like a walk in into the darkness. I mean, who wants to review stuff like that? Yet that's what the psalmist do. They review their losses. They appeal to God. They cry out to God listing out their losses, which some which could be called complaints sometimes.”

53s

#GrieveInCommunity

“In Jerusalem, there's a place known as the Wailing Wall. Here's a picture of the Wailing Wall. The Wailing Wall is located at the Western Wall of the old city of Jerusalem. It's the most sacred site where Jews gathered to pray. Originally, they prayed there, again, because of the destruction. They mourned and they weeped over the destruction of the temple. Today, it's where people gather to pray for all kinds of needs, and they do go there sometimes to cry and to lament and to grieve and to mourn over tremendous losses. But they don't do it by themselves. There's always people there at the wall also crying, maybe not about the same thing, but with the same heart of mourning. We are not meant to grieve in isolation.”

58s

#PsalmsTeachGrief

“Now, the Psalms of Lament are prayers of grief, sorrow, and struggle. Now, there's a 150 Psalms, which you've been told now about four times. Over one third of the of fifties one third of the Psalms or 57 of them are songs of lament. So one third of all 150 Psalms psalms or songs of lament. Now psalms of lament typically follow a pattern. Here's the pattern. Crying out to God, stating the complaint, asking for help, and ultimately choosing to trust in his faithfulness and deliverance. That's normally the structure of a song of lament. Now, we're gonna do is look at how the Psalms of lament inform us about biblical grief management. So it's not just found in the Psalms, but throughout the scriptures. How do we manage grief in our lives?”

32s

#KnowJesusForHealing

“The first step to remediating grief and mitigating in our lives is really to know Jesus. Because he gives you the light of day. So you walk into the darkness so that's at some point in time, you see the risen sun, not just the sunrise. So if you would like to meet the risen son Jesus today, I'd like to give you an opportunity to confess your faith in him.”

47s

#WalkIntoDarknessToDawn

“Grandchildren, I hope that your life is filled with joy and prosperity. However, when a trial comes upon you, may you be willing and able to walk into the darkness that you may experience the light of dawn in your life so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Are you on a journey of lament because of the pain and suffering caused by a loss? Now it's gonna be on the screen. Feel and express your feelings. Review the loss, don't just replace it. Grieve in community. Remember that the Lord heals, not time. So give your grief to God and take time to recover.”

55s

#GriefSharedHeals

“So I went in with my brother. So we got to the bed. I remember we both knelt down. We didn't talk about it. We just both knelt down. And we leaned against the bed, and then the well of tears started for both of us. We wailed and we wailed and we just cried it. It was just heavy crying. I had never seen my brother cry. He had never seen me cry. Well, except maybe when he got a spanking. But that's different. Right? Right. That's different. you know what? I mean, we cried for an extended period of time. It was like we were at the Wailing Wall. And, you know, I don't think that would have happened unless we were together. In fact, I am positive that wouldn't have happened unless we were together because when he cried, I cried. When I cried, he cried. We grieved in community.”

61s

#HonorTheLoss

“Upon any kind of loss, we need to spend a season of reviewing the loss and not just trying to replace it. Let's say a family a beloved pet family dies, a dog, and your children are beside themselves with grief, and that can happen, right, of a long term pet. So you decide as loving parents to solve it, especially this is what this is what dads oftentimes do. You go out and you immediately buy another dog. Maybe you even name the dog dog two. You know? You give that the name and the same name, but put two behind it, two point o behind it. Right? But what we've taught our children if we do that is to avoid grief by replacing the loss, and that's not necessarily a helpful thing. We need to allow our children to grieve first before we even attempt to replace the loss.”

39s

#GrieveBeforeReplacing

“Say you're in a serious relationship, and you're hopeful that maybe it's gonna lead to marriage, that all of a sudden your significant other decides to leave the relationship and you'll be rough with grief. And while you should be, One thing you should never do is try to replace your significant other right away. I've seen this happen. In forty two years of ministry, I've seen this happen. Within six months to a year, they're in a brand new relationship without a significant season of grieving the loss. Because if we don't grieve the loss, sometimes we don't make good decisions thereafter.”

32s

#GiveYourGriefToGod

“Have you experienced a loss and the grief associated with loss? Are you in the process of burying it, hoping that time will heal? Time will not heal your grief. Only God can do that. But giving our grief to God may seem like a walk in the wilderness. We give it to God, so so what's next? Seems like a walk into the darkness.”

33s

#YouAreNotAloneInLoss

“Some of you have had a loss. It may have been a tremendous loss, and you're dealing with the sense of loss and the grief that goes along with it. We have a prayer room to my left, and it's to your right, those double doors there, they will open up during worship, the closing worship. If you are carrying a load of grief, you're not supposed to bear that alone. Take it over to there, to the go between the doors there and go in and receive prayer for your grief.”

62s

#UnableToGrieve

“At the end of my father journey, toward the end, I thought, okay. I think I'm at a point of healing. I went to a counselor for a year and a half, and I I did I did the series of steps. So one night, when I felt like, okay, think I'm I've done all that I can do, I had a dream. And in my dream, I was attending my father's funeral, but I was not the officiant. Officiant. I was sitting where a son should be sitting. And in the middle of my dream, I don't know what was going on in the service, but I started to cry. I mean, I was crying hard over the death of my father. I woke up from the dream and I was crying. I mean, I was actually physically crying. You ever have that happen in a dream? Where you're dreaming of something, when you wake up, it's actually a reality in that moment. I was crying and I continue to cry after I woke up. And I felt like I am now mourning for my father and now the Lord can comfort me.”

36s

#UnresolvedFatherLoss

“Well, so I went on a father journey. And the journey started when I saw a movie called Field of Dreams. And at the end of the there's one scene. That's where they play catch. And I saw that scene, and I just broke down, and I cried, and I cried, and I cried over that scene because that's the one thing my dad and I did all the time is play catch in the driveway. I knew I had a father issue, so I went on about a year, a little over a year father journey. And I teach them what how to take a father journey. It's 13 steps.”

54s

#FeelAndExpressGrief

“So we'll look at five steps of good grief. Step one, feel and express our feelings. Feel and express your feelings. Step one of unhealthy grief management says, bury your feelings. Very unhealthy. Whereas healthy biblical grief management says, we need to feel and we need to express our grief and our feelings. And I read through all the individual Psalms of Lament and they all have this component where they feel and express their feelings of grief, all of them. It's part of the healing process. In fact, feeling and expressing our feelings is called grief. It's what we do or should be doing when we grieve.”

48s

#GrieveWithHope

“So the context here is people who passed away who know Jesus. And he's telling the people of Thessalonica, you know, the Lord is with you. You have hope in your grief for for, Jesus was raised from the grave and so too were your loved one. But the point of first Thessalonians four thirteen for this message is that there is more than one way to grieve. Alright? There's more than one way to grieve, just pointed out in this text. You can grieve with hope or you can grieve as one without hope. So there are different ways of grieving. So how do we experience good grief rather than bad grief? What do we do?”

69s

#MournTogetherAndAlone

“Now here's a caution, however. There is a time and there is a place for mourning in solitude. You do need some downtime to yourself to mourn, but not at the exclusion of mourning and grieving with others. You know, funeral services, memorial services, celebrations of life, at the end of the service, as is the custom for many, the family is sitting up front and everybody who attends files by the family for a final tribute. And sometimes people wanna avoid that. My counsel is that if at all possible, have that time because that's when the community comes and greets you and has a moment of mourning with you or an expression of grief with you. And that's that community time. That's very important. And a lot of younger people tell sometimes tell me, we don't want everybody to go through that. I said, no. Trust me. It's a good time it's a good thing to go through. And afterwards, they all say, it was a it's just a wonderful time. Plus, the friends and family like to have that moment with you.”

28s

#LamentReviewsLoss

“Take time to recover. Take time to recover. Unhealthy grief recovery says, never get close again. That's one of the byproducts of it. Alright? Instead of taking time to recover, I mean, you you try to, you try to never get close again, and you try never to let that hurt hurt you again. Like, there's a a breakup, sometimes you just don't want another relationship ever.”

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