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Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
Pursuing Goodness: Grief & Lament part 2
Welcome back to part two of our four-part series on "Pursuing Goodness" in 2025! In today's episode, hosts Aaron Tagert and James Craig dive further into the topics of grief and lament. Contrary to popular belief, these emotions can be a catalysts for healing and growth. Aaron and James discuss personal experiences, the importance of acknowledging sorrow, and share insights on how grieving well can lead to genuine comfort and maturity. Join us as we explore how to embrace these challenging emotions to start the new year with a journey toward wholeness.
Resources:
Grieving the Seasons of Our Lives - Ron Walborn
Lament Psalm 3 (from Soul Shepherding Ministries)
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly (from Awaken 360)
Psalms in a Month
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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
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👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
Welcome back to another episode of Becoming Whole. This is part two of the conversation about pursuing goodness by leaning into grief and lament. If you haven't listened to the first part of last week, we encourage you to go back and listen to that before you tune into today. Ready to continue the conversation, let's dive in.
Speaker 2:One of the other things that that guy, dr Ron Walburn, says is that he's known for speaking let's dive in that. You do them again If we don't have a theology of grief or lament when people don't get healed. I mean, he shares a story in his talk about a pastor who prayed for years and had a whole community praying for his wife, but his wife still passed away. Yet the same pastor would see people healed on a somewhat regular basis when he prayed for that. There's incredible grief in that. And so if he doesn't grieve that, he doesn't grieve that reality that, whatever reasons that God has like not everyone's healed. On this side of heaven we're not yet in the fullness, the absolute fullness, of the kingdom, the new heavens and new earth. If we don't develop that kind of theology of grief, we can't get that far. In a lot of things we become hardened because we don't know how to deal with yeah, what the loss or the things not happening that we know god can do yeah, so good.
Speaker 1:Well, jesus was no stranger to to grief and lament, as we've kind of alluded to a little bit, and there are some things I think that we can really learn from him when we look at how he didn't shy away from, from grief and lament and so immediately, most people probably think about jesus weeping. And you know, especially with the death of Lazarus or his good buddy in the chosen, as they said, laz. I love that, just the you know the humanity side of calling, you know a friend, a nickname, but you know Lazarus dies and he is deeply moved at how that's affecting not just him and his friendship with Lazarus, but Mary and Martha and the disciples and all the friends. Like he sees, like he's experiencing it and he has moved to tears. I think he he weeps when John the Baptist dies and and you know I don't we don't read that necessarily, but Jesus being the feeler that he was, as he, you know, withdraws to a desolate place on a boat to be by himself can only imagine that he is crying out.
Speaker 1:You know, tears of losing his dear cousin I mean the one that leapt in Elizabeth's womb when he was just near right, so you know that and then also, when he's in the garden and he has this, as we later read, the joy set before him but, like his father's plan and knowing what was at stake and what he needed to do and his role in that, and that was hard to to accept, right and and and he, he's crying in the garden, you know, and and you know, asks the Lord to take this from him, if, if that be as well, and the Lord doesn't take that cup. We know that, and. But yet there's grief in that. There's a reality of the pain, of the hard of the, of the loss, right, he's going to, of the pain of the hard of the loss he's going to lose his life, his earthly life. So we talk about grief in terms of loss, and so that hangs before him.
Speaker 2:I love that passage too, about Jesus, isaiah 53, that famous passage. It says he was a man of sorrows or a man of suffering and familiar with grief or familiar with pain, and what an amazing image of what our God is like. He's someone who didn't have to enter, he didn't have to create all this that turned into the mess that it often is, but he chose to, and he also chooses to grieve with those who grieve, yeah, and he prays too in the midst of grief, you know, to bring comfort.
Speaker 1:And again, just his, his presence in these different moments. Right, he speaks into others, grief, and shows us really how, how to do that with with one another. He shares his grief with his friends, his disciples. You know he doesn't hide it. He does this, which really highlights, I think, the need for community and to be able to grieve together, showing, you know, I mean we, we learn, you know different, the different experiences that we bring, the different circumstances we've been through. Those are hard but those can also offer hope and healing to others and I think that's part of that right. There's power and testimony because in the midst of someone going through something difficult, they can see how someone's overcome or how the Lord has met them and drawn near and helped and had been present when they're maybe not not feeling that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dr Jim Wilder, who is the one who studied the brain and its effect on our spiritual formation for decades now he talks about. He defines joy as a sense of I'm glad to be with you. And what's amazing about that definition which I do think aligns with scripture is that you can have joy even when you're crying in someone's arms because you're glad to be with each other. You can have joy even when you're angry, believe it or not. Even angry at a person, you can still be glad that they're there, glad to be with them, and obviously that's an incredible mark of maturity to be able to remain in joy in those really painful emotions like sorrow or anger or shame.
Speaker 2:But what an amazing image of what the Christian community can be. And actually, when we're experiencing those really negative emotions, in the context of joy, it's healing what's way more painful to our brains. The way God's designed us is to experience tragedy without another. And so you're spot on, aaron, even from from a brain perspective the way god's designed us, he's designed us to I mean paul says that carry each other's burdens, to have that joyful connection, even when one person's up or another person's down yeah, and there's even some invitation in that and some and some work.
Speaker 1:I know, you know, because it's not easy, you know we all have some work, you know to do and and and to to really, you know, press into that. But it also makes me think that you know, if the importance of community and grief, that if we're afraid to own our own tears, that that we're going to be scared of others, and anytime that we see somebody who needs that hug or needs some sort of comfort, that we shy away from that because maybe we don't feel like we've experienced that or we've done that well. And so there really is an importance to not only do it for ourselves but to also, in community, be there for one another. And then, lastly, just Jesus also points to the future in grief. So thinking again him at the tomb and speaking to Mary and Martha that your brother will rise again.
Speaker 1:And there's just something about the current circumstance is temporary. There is hope and a future. There is something more and something greater, and it's hard to see that. It's kind of like a sunset and you've got all these beautiful colors and you can see all these things, but when you're going through grief it's like black and white and you don't see all of the beauty, you don't see all of the color. But I love how he doesn't leave us in this place of the hard and the difficult but he actually speaks hope into the future that those circumstances are temporary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, paul, I think, even says don't grieve, as those who don't have hope Now I think again in our context it often doesn't know how to grieve at all we can be like it, basically can shut down all sadness or grief.
Speaker 2:But I think what Paul's getting at is that we do have this profound hope that everything sad will come untrue. God is going to work even these terrible things. It doesn't mean we stop the sadness in the moment. It doesn't mean that we shut things down emotionally, but we can still hold Again. It's that idea of joy, like God's with us. We can be glad to be with him. He's glad to be with us even in our sadness, even in our sorrow and ultimately, what he's most glad about for Jesus, it says that he went to the cross for the joy set before him, because he wanted to be fully reunited with us, and that's an incredible hope, not only that he's going to redeem everything and he already has started but that he's with us in that, and that's what his incarnation that we just celebrated over Christmas points to. It's that he came in to be with us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he will come again. Amen, yes, amen yeah. So let's shift to kind of talking a little bit about how, like, how do we begin? How do we encourage someone to begin the work of of grief and lament? What are some practical ways in in which those who are listening can practice that work, or a couple of things that come to mind for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple of ideas here and feel free to pause or go back. We don't have time to get into a ton of depth, but one of my absolute favorite things to do most months of the year is to read through the entire book of Psalms. They were split up by, I believe, the Anglicans to have a morning and an evening reading that are relatively even, about five minutes each. You get through the entire 150 Psalms every single month.
Speaker 2:Why get into the Psalms? Because they're full of the range of human emotion. There's at least probably a dozen that are just like, maybe more, that are full of grief and lament, and there's actually two that end with no hope whatsoever. And that's not because we're called to again be those who grieve without hope, but it's to show us like God sees us, like this has been experienced before. So this is a really important way to grow our emotional life. We are called to pray the Psalms, sing the Psalms. Psalms are the most quoted book in the New Testament, so if you're not getting into the Psalms, such a great place to start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're missing something. Yeah, mark, mark Vroga, who wrote Dark Clouds, deep Mercy, actually identifies that one out of every three Psalms is a limit. So that's not necessarily like in a row or you know, like in the first six psalms there's two of them, but overall, throughout the entire psalms, about one out of every three psalms that you read is a lament, and so you just think about again, like you said, those deep emotions, you know, and going through that, I do the same thing. I like to go through the psalms, and so you just think about again, like you said, those deep emotions, you know, and going through that, I do the same thing. I like to go through the Psalms. I do it slightly different. We don't need to get into the different ways of doing it, but I think there is something about and that would actually be an encouragement, a huge encouragement in coaching that I've shared with clients as well. If they are stuck or don't know how to grieve or haven't lamented, my encouragement is to get into the Psalms and to begin to unlock some of that emotion and those different things. So I think that's really good.
Speaker 1:You can also practice writing your own too, right, and again, I think you know Mark wrote the Mark Brogrip I hope I'm saying his name right but he identifies that there are four kind of elements, you know, when writing your own.
Speaker 1:So there's the turning to, there's the turn, and we turn to God and we address him as we go into prayer. Sometimes that can be combined with complaint, which is the next kind of step is to bring our complaints, you know, to identify, in specific language, you know, and to not be afraid to be blunt, like God can take it. He wants it all, like he wants us to pour out our hearts before him and we see that in the Psalms especially to bring our pain, injustices, you know, and those types of things. And then the third. The third step is to ask, to specifically call on God to act in a helpful manner that fits his character and resolves the complaint. And lastly is to choose to trust, affirm that God is worthy and that he can be trusted and praised, despite of where we're at in the circumstance, if we've experienced kind of coming through that or not, that we can still choose to trust him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we actually will throw another resource in the show notes, based on Psalm 3, I believe, writing your own Psalm Lament from Soul Shepherding just another great resource, similar set of steps, but it just kind of outlines the Psalm and then it takes you through and it seems really simple and for some people it might feel like I really need to sit here and kind of fill in the blank, but I can't tell you how helpful it's been for many people to pour out in that way, have a little bit of structure, because, again, grief is not a super structurable thing overall, but when we're trying to make some outlets, when we're trying to open up the smokestack to let out some steam or whatever the right term would be, things like this can be really, really helpful. I think. Similarly, we can get our bodies involved. We can actually express the emotions bodily. We can be shouting with God, encouraging you not to shout at other people in your anger or sorrow, but God, like Aaron just said, can totally take it, and some of the Psalms are like where are you, god? God, you're asleep. They'll say things like that. It's like wait. That's not theologically accurate. That's not the point of what the psalms are sometimes portraying. They're showing that a deeper thing, that they can get all of it out to god. So you can engage your body. You could, you know, cry, you could listen to certain kind of music with your ears that help you get into some of the greed for lament In scripture.
Speaker 2:Actually, they use their body a lot for this. They would get in sackcloth and cover themselves in ashes. What a crazy image if you really think of it. Sackcloth, I believe, was this really itchy, kind of painful to put on or wear, I guess, garment, and so you're literally feeling the pain of the discomfort in that way to help your mind breathe, and you're covered in ashes. You know the darkness of everything.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, on this side of the new heavens, new earth, ends up in ashes. You know, we, we go back to dust, right, that's what scripture says, and so these are visceral reminders of the grief that people are going through, and they in Jewish culture, and they would sometimes, I believe they would grieve for like a lost spouse for an entire year. Can you imagine that in our culture Usually it's like, okay, we might let maybe a half an hour here or there, with the death of a family member, or something like that. Can you imagine a widow in clear grief and clear, choosing to lament for an entire year, but again, that allowed them to get out so much of what needed to be gotten out of their system, so to speak, that they could then move forward with greater joy and hope and other things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, look at our culture, I think we get like three days or something you know most workplaces to, you know bereavement and to kind of enter into that, and it's not like it stops after three days, right, like that continues on. And so there's something you know about just continuing to allow that process, that grief process it really is a process you know to to play itself out, to be present.
Speaker 2:In addition to these ideas with God that you can kind of do on your own, and community is so important here. Paul, most of scripture is written with you plural y'all in mind. And so Paul says things like rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn Romans 12, 15. So there's this actual kind of command to get into the mourning with people. It doesn't say fix those who mourn. It doesn't say give them an easy Bible verse to cover over their mourning. It says mourn with those who mourn, get in that sackcloth and ashes, wear the black clothes, whatever you know each cultural expression was. And I think that this is so key, aaron, because again, this is how our brains are designed. There's this idea again from Jim Wilder. They call it VCR. Jim Wilder and Marcus Warner Validate, comfort, repattern.
Speaker 2:Validate means you're just simply validating someone's emotions. Isn't that what most of us want when we're feeling stuff? If we jump right into comfort which obviously is ultimately we want to be comforted we might kind of cover over what needs to be let out right, we might kind of stop it short. But we need to start with that validation. So if people are coming to us in grief, we can validate their grief. It doesn't mean you're validating their response to the grief. You know someone's response or certain behaviors or whatever. That's not what we're talking about. We're just saying validating how they're feeling and then, at the appropriate time, you can bring in the comfort. It might be a a different perspective, it might be certain kind of prayer or things like that, but having that order re-patterns the person or, if we're receiving it ourselves, it re-patterns us to know that we can actually grieve in a holistic and full way and that those who grieve again, like you said earlier, will be comforted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, gosh, I Gosh, I love that man, it's so good. Well, as we, as we wrap this up, james, you know one thing that I think about. You know, in helping you know what is helpful, how does somebody do this? You know an encouragement, you know that that immediately comes to mind would be to bring bring that into a coaching session, one-to-one coaching that we offer here at Regen, or to not go alone and to begin to really press into that and again, this idea that there is goodness in the grief and lament, and pursuing that and how that can be good and what that can unlock, I think, for you as an individual who is going through a time of grief and lament, and James, I want to give you the last word and just ask you also to close us out in prayer.
Speaker 2:Well, aaron, I actually I want you to pray for us, man, because you're someone who I see embody this, and I'd love for you to actually just pray, especially for the men listening at the very end, just that we could release more tears and, you know, for the women listening that we could enter into that grief as we really need. But I will say real quick that one of my favorite and most important exercises I've ever done on this again happens to come from this module of Awaken that we're starting today. We call it the good, the bad, the ugly. It's just simply a life inventory the good, the bad and the ugly. I guess in this case the ugly is like things I've done, the baddest things that have maybe been done to me. But what a way to kind of take a lifelong inventory, and that's something I bring into coaching as well, just like you mentioned, as I get a phone call. Let me just say that again. There you go. Yeah, so the good, the bad and the ugly. This can be something that we bring into coaching, but just taking a life inventory of what we've been through to kind of get this overview, we'll put that in the notes as well, the show notes.
Speaker 2:But as we close, I just want to read this passage from Isaiah 65 about the hope that we do have. This is verse 17 through 19 and then verse 25. See, I will create a new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create. I will create jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over jerusalem and take delight in my people. The sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it. No more. The wolf and the lamb will feed together and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy. On all my holy mountain, says the Lord.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Well, lord, we do just ask you, lord, to draw near, help us to feel, Lord, your nearness. But thank you, Lord, that you are so present, lord, that you collect our tears, lord, and I pray that we wouldn't be afraid, lord, of our tears and that we wouldn't be afraid of the tears of those we're in community with Lord, that you would just release Lord emotion in us, lord, to express, to not hold back Lord in a lamenting kind of way. Lord, I thank you and we just ask again, again, lord, that that you would just grace us with that, that nearness, and we pray these things in Christ's name, amen.
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