It is true that no one ever grieves in the same way. We are all different in personality and chemical makeup. But what is the same, is that everyone, at some point, grieves.

For Luther, Jesus does something much better for those who grieve than simply identify with them: He brings suffering and evil to an end in His own death.

As I sit here on Easter Sunday, the light is coming into my living room. My dog is sitting sweetly in my lap, enjoy the light scratches on her ear and getting in my face as to stop me from writing.

He looked me straight in the eye and said these words, almost in a challenging way, “I hate God. I do."

How long, O Lord, will the voice of children’s blood cry out to You from the ground?

This blog is a part of our Advent series on the hope we find in, through and given by Christ. Each week’s installment will look at hope from a different perspective with special emphasis on corresponding passages of Scripture.

It’s by no means an ivory-tower theological question. It’s as real as the weight we’ve lost from the stress of our divorce. As real as the bottle of antidepressants on our nightstand. We believe in him. We love him. But every voice inside us and every shred of evidence outside us points to his abandonment of us in our hour of deepest need.

Whatever loss you’ve undergone, whatever grief resides in the hollow of your heart, however much it seems like God has abandoned you, God sees that void as the place he wants to fill with new life and mercy.

My Grandmother recently lost a long battle with cancer. Her name was Joy, and a name has never been more fitting.

For every child in a mother’s womb, the whole host of heaven and earth, indeed God himself, intercedes.

Recently I’ve met many people that have suffered tragedies in their families. I know this sounds a little selfish, but the ones that stick out the most to me are the ones that affected my own family.

You became, for a time, ritually unclean. Not sinful. Not immoral. To be unclean meant you bore in your own body the effects of a creation in bondage to decay.