Written by Steve Winkle, Associate Regional Director for Young Life’s Western Great Lakes Region. Originally given as a high school chapel talk, adapted and shared with permission.
It was the summer of 1979 as my senior year approached. I had trained like never before for my final cross country season. I was working at Calvin College that summer—13 miles from my Grandville home—and among many other pre-season workouts, I ran home from work a couple of times, steady 7-minute miles the whole way. By our first race, I was ready to roll.
It was hot, but I generally did okay in the heat. On this day though, a few stinging creatures honed in on me as a target. And if you’ve ever been stung while your heart rate is around 175, some funky lumps tend to develop at the sting sites. But I charged on, until I felt this odd sensation not allowing me to take my next step. A runner behind me had stepped on the back of my foot, his front two spikes went in on either side of my Achilles. I dragged my foot forward and the spikes dragged their way out of my body, leaving a couple of bloody gashes behind.
Most cross country runners have similar stories, involving races that did not go according to plan. I still found my way to the finish line that day—still first for our team—but not as close to the front as I would have been. Little did I know that the beginning of my season was also the end of my season.
The next night, I was out running when I felt this weird pain in my chest. The next day a cardiologist told me that my season was finished. To begin a senior year with even more losses was not what it was supposed to be.
This feeling of loss is all too familiar for teenagers today. For them, it isn’t a crazy mitral valve but a global pandemic. They have lost much this year: sports seasons, play and musical performances, prom, dances, vacations, camps, weekend time together, and more. They have been frustrated, depressed, sad, and desperately disconnected.
For some teenagers, the primary loss hasn’t been “what” but “who” as they are missing loved ones. And we all have many “what” and “who” losses, too.
So what do we do? Lament is a healthy expression of grief, based in faith in God. God can handle our anger and frustration. In fact, in a famous lament in Psalm 44, the poet is very frustrated with God because they have been crushed by their enemies over and over again. He tells God to “wake up” and asks Him why He is hiding His face. But at the end of the poem, his faith is clear: “Rise up and help us; rescue us because of your unfailing love” (26).
God invites us to bring our pain, our loss, our struggles to Him. So I encourage you to do that today—maybe by yourself aloud, in a journal, with a friend or mentor. As you do, remember that our all-powerful, all-knowing God is nearer than the chair where you are sitting because He has chosen to take up residence within you. He knows what tears taste like; He knows what it is to feel loss. In fact, in Isaiah’s prophecy, Jesus is described as a “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (53:3). And on this Maundy Thursday centuries later, we know the reasons for His sorrow and grief.
I encourage you to name all of the negative stuff you have been feeling as the grief that it is and to express that grief to our faithful God in lament.
In the midst of healthy lament, there is trust. Trust that God listens and cares. Trust that God really meant it when He said He would work all things—even the worst of our human circumstances—together for good. It’s the trust of the Psalmist who wrote, “rescue us because of your unfailing love.”
In this season, may we all learn to do something counterintuitive: to trust God even more. For that, we need help from the Holy Spirit, who is alive and well in the hearts of all who know Jesus as Savior and Lord. We also need help from each other.
I don’t pretend to understand all the loss and suffering, but whenever I ask people in their 70s, 80s, or 90s if they grew closer to God in the sweet and easy seasons of life or the tough ones, I’m guessing you know what they aways say, often with tears in their eyes.
A question that I believe God is asking of us in this season is: “Am I enough?” When it feels like so many things have been unfairly taken away from you—or maybe someone very close has been taken away from you—is the God who made you wonderfully and beautifully in His image enough? What is the best answer to that question? “Yes, Lord, as you were for Job long ago, you are enough for me.” But as I have endured some incredibly painful losses in my own life, I often could not answer an honest “Yes” to God’s “Am I enough?” question. But I’m pretty sure God likes this answer almost as much: “I’m not sure today, God, that You are enough, but please help me to believe that You are.”
Christian scholar Frederick Buechner puts it this way: “‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief’ is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.”
I coached cross country for 25 years, and it was my own senior year—the year of loss—that made me a better coach. I recently sat with a former student who shared something heartbreaking. It wasn’t something I could fix, but because I could relate to his pain, I could sit with him and weep with him.
Life is really hard sometimes on this broken side of eternity, and utterly joyful other times. But in all times, in His most excellent way, God calls us to Himself and to each other.
