All Our Griefs To Bear

Where do our churches go from here? Church and Christian community look a lot different than they did before the horrors of the coronavirus pandemic, racial trauma, and economic uncertainty revealed difficult truths about the wounds we carry. The damage caused by trauma is deep and affects every part of our lives together. At the same time, the pandemic has upended or called into question many of our traditional ministry models. For those tasked with leading congregations through this disorienting new territory, the challenges are great indeed. ​ Yet God’s people are amazingly resilient. In All Our Griefs to Bear, author Joni S. Sancken builds on her own trauma-aware background and engages leading sociologists and mental health professionals to name some of the largest issues that congregations now face and will face as we process the cascading trauma of our time. Chapters focus on practices such as lament, storytelling, and blessing to help leaders and church members to nurture resilience and compassion. We cannot go back to who we were before. But the church can experience new life and renewal in the wake of trauma as God’s healing and hope move through us into our world.

Grief as a lifelong human experience is the scope of this absorbing book. Kenneth R. Mitchell and Herbert Anderson explore the multiple dimensions of the problem, including orgins of grief, loss throughout life, dynamics of grief, care for those who grieve, and the theology of grieving. This examination of the process of grief is enriched by vivid illustrations and case histories of individuals whose experiences the authors have shared.

In the great tribulation, who shall be able to stand when the distress, the grievous times, and persecutions shall come? The Bible calls those times the great tribulations: “For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). John saw mountains and islands moving out of their places and people running and crying unto the mountains and rocks to fall on them to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. John saw so much coming into the world, so he asked God in Revelation 6:17, “Who shall be able to stand?” In Revelation 7:9, “John seen a multitude which no man could number, standing before the Lamb, clothed in white robes.” In verse 13, one of the elders asked John, “Who are these in white robes, and where did they come from?” John said unto the elder in verse 14, “Sir, thou know. He said unto me, These, are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” To make our robes white in the blood of the Lamb, we have got to do as it is written in Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; thou they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Those shall be the ones who shall be able to stand.