Engraved Grief

Hi friends, and thanks for joining us for today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our reading was written by Monica LaRose, and she titled it Engraved Grief. After receiving the devastating diagnosis of a rare and incurable brain cancer, Caroline found renewed hope and purpose through providing a unique service—volunteering photography services for critically ill children and their families. Through this service, families could capture the precious moments shared with their children, both in grief and the moments of grace and beauty we assume don't exist in those desperate places.

She observed that in the hardest moments imaginable, those families choose to love despite and because of it all. There's something unspeakably powerful about capturing the truth of grief, both the devastating reality of it and the ways in which we experience beauty and hope in the midst of it. Much of the book of Job is like a photograph of grief, capturing honestly Job's journey through devastating loss. After sitting with Job for several days, his friends wearied of his grief, resorting to minimizing it or explaining it away as God's judgment, but Job would have none of it, insisting that what he was going through mattered and wishing that the testimony of his experience would be engraved in rock forever. Through the book of Job, it was engraved in a way that points us, in our grief, to the living God who meets us in our pain, carrying us through death into resurrection life.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Job chapter 19 verses 19-27. All my intimate friends detest me. Those I love have turned against me. I am nothing but skin and bones.

I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me. Why do you pursue me as God does?

Will you never get enough of my flesh? Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead or engraved in rock forever. I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end, He will stand on earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh, I will see God. I myself will see Him with my own eyes.

I and not another. How my heart yearns within me. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you for being empathetic and compassionate in our pain. Help us to come alongside others in their pain and give us words of comfort and healing, offering them hope, the very hope that you give us. Thank you, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening today. My name is Alisha Reisinger and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.