Psalm 22

A 30-day Devotional About Sorrow and Suffering

De: Kyle Burkholder

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Sorrow and suffering. Why would anyone write about such a thing or, worse, spend a month reading and doing the heavy spiritual work of meditating and praying through a devotional dealing with the most morbid machinations of the soul? In 2004, I moved to South Africa and came face to face with extreme poverty and the ravaging plague of AIDS. I held the hands of the starving and the dying. I cried out. Nothing changed. Years later, the same children were still hungry despite my best efforts. AIDS came to infect our closest friends. We fought. We often lost. The sorrow never released its grip. In 2013, my little sister died after 14 years fighting chronic illness. Her years of suffering amounted to a deep well of loss for all left behind, a void of pain that itself inflicts as a daily, aching remembrance. I have been a minister for 15 years, praying by bedsides as loved ones released the last breath of life and serving as officiant, the solemn reminder of eternal things, at funerals. I have stood to eulogize infants, knowing that no combination of my best, holiest words could undo the confusion or grief of such unspeakable loss. I have walked in loss and sat in the ashes of death, unable to conjure up a single ounce of lasting comfort for the aching hearts surrounding me. And I am not unique. Our sufferings are a universal language, an eventuality for all who occupy the earth. We are all afflicted at some point, all besieged by tragedy somewhere along the path. This is why we go to the Psalms to hear David's cries. Even kings cannot avoid their comeuppance. When we read that Jesus wept, we heave a sigh of relief. Him, too? Kings. The King of Kings. Broken-hearted like us. Their tears fall into the ashes of loss just like ours. This is our hope. There is a way to walk through the guttural groaning of existential pain and find truth and strength for a new day. And while I am not sure that we ever truly get over the sufferings of life, we can learn to live with them, to carry their weight with grace. So that is my invitation. Will you walk that path and learn to better carry that weight? Will you follow David and Jesus in the sorrow and suffering? Whether your season of pain lies behind you, in front of you, or upon you now... We need never walk alone.