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This week, as I’ve pondered this topic of “Love in a Grieving World,” I’m reminded of a song that feels like an old friend to me. This song, called “Our Hope Endures” by Natalie Grant, found its way to me ten years ago, and ever since that time I have found it to be a comfort and companion in my seasons of grief, or days when I come especially near to the suffering of another person. It gives me the words I need to cry out to God when I struggle to find them on my own. It gives words to the pain and suffering that we each encounter at one time or another in this life.
This year, there has undeniably been an unprecedented amount of suffering, death, hopelessness, and strife in our world. As a hospital chaplain, I have been witness to it firsthand. I will be the first to admit that it’s been difficult to know what to do about any of it. There are no easy answers. So we grieve. We cry. We name it. We confide. We listen. We ask why. We keep showing up.
And then, somewhere along the way in the midst of the grieving, the refrain washes over me again and again: Emmanuel, God is with us. El Shaddai all sufficient. Emmanuel, God is with us. El Shaddai, all sufficient.
No matter the sufferings we encounter personally, collectively, or globally, we can lean into the promise that our God is a God who is near, who is with us, who is radically immanent, who is abundantly good, and who is enough for the flourishing of all of creation. Isn’t that all we really need after all when we are in the pit of grief, or in the middle of the longest global pandemic? Someone to show up for us. To sit with us. To listen. To demonstrate they care by their emotional presence, whether it comes to us via the physical or the virtual realm (#2020).
This is the love that gives birth to hope. This is the love that comes near to brokenness of all kinds. This is the love that is born in Bethlehem, that the angels tell the shepherds will change everything. This is the love that we are invited into over and over again every time we open our eyes in the morning. This hope doesn’t immediately fix all the brokenness, but it does endure while love journeys with us.
“Our Hope Endures” by Natalie Grant, 2009
You would think only so much can go wrong
Calamity only strikes once
And you assume that this one has suffered her share
Life will be kinder from here
Sometimes the sun stays hidden for years
Sometimes the sky rains night after night
When will it clear
But our hope endures the worst of conditions
It's more than our optimism
Let the earth quake
Our hope is unchanged
How do we comprehend peace within pain
Our joy at a good man's wake
Walk a mile with a woman whose body is torn
With illness but she marches on
Sometimes the sun stays hidden for years
Sometimes the sky rains night after night
When will it clear
But our hope endures the worst of conditions
It's more than our optimism
Let the earth quake
Our hope is unchanged
Emmanuel, God is with us
El Shaddai, all sufficient
Emmanuel, God is with us
El Shaddai, all sufficient
Emmanuel, God is with us
El Shaddai, all sufficient
We never walk alone
This is our hope
Our hope endures, the worst of conditions
It's more than our optimism
Let the earth quake
Let the earth quake
Let the earth quake
Our hope is unchanged