When we react to circumstances that appear senseless.

Our self-pity rages at God.

We embrace our most comforting lies.
Is there a way back from bitterness?

Seeing through our lies isn’t enough.

The only way back is to look again at Jesus.

We despised him. We rejected him as he suffered.

But he was bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows.

The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.

But he didn’t open his mouth against us or against God.

In fact, he makes blasphemers to be accounted righteous.

Looking again at him can calm our shrieking hatred & restore us to sanity.

In A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis mourned the loss of his wife with these words:

Her palate for all the joys of sense and intellect and spirit was fresh and unspoiled.

Nothing would have been wasted on her.

She liked more things and liked them more than anyone I have known.

A noble hunger, long unsatisfied, met at last its proper food, and almost instantly the food was snatched away.

Fate (or whatever it is) delights to produce a great capacity and then frustrate it.

Beethoven went deaf. By our standards a mean joke; the monkey trick of a spiteful imbecile.

An Unknown soldier wrote:

I asked for strength that I might achieve;

I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health that I might do greater things;

I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked for riches that I might be happy;

I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men;

I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;

I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I had asked for, but eveything that I had hoped for.

Remember

God is with us.

God will bless us.

God will give rest.

God will not fail us.

God will strengthen us.

God will answer us.

God will provide for us.

God is for us.

God loves us.

God will guide us.

Jesus! what a Friend for sinners!
Jesus! lover of my soul;
friends may fail me, foes assail me,
he, my Savior, makes me whole.

Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah, what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
he is with me to the end.

Jesus! what a strength in weakness!
Let me hide myself in him;
tempted, tried & sometimes failing,
he, my strength, my vict’ry wins.

Jesus! what a help in sorrow!
While the billows o’er me roll,
even when my heart is breaking,
he, my comfort, helps my soul.

Jesus! what a guide & keeper!
While the tempest still is high,
storms about me, night o’ertakes me,
he, my pilot, hears my cry.

Jesus! I do now receive him,
more than all in him I find;
he hath granted me forgiveness,
I am his, and he is mine.