You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. – Psalm 77:4

Today's Scripture Reading (September 24, 2025): Psalm 77

Grief. It is something that we all meet at some time in our lives. None of us escapes this life journey without experiencing it. I have met grief several times on my journey. Each time hurts and changes me. And there is a parade of people I have lost that are never far from me.

Grief is a reaction to death, but more precisely, it is a reaction to loss. Sometimes that loss is because of the death of someone close to us. However, loss also happens as a result of sickness, and sometimes loss occurs because of a broken relationship that we seem impotent at piecing back together. As I sit in my office writing these words, I admit that I have suffered, and am suffering, from all of these forms of loss. I am a person hurt by the weapons that grief has at its disposal. I am not alone; we all suffer from the effects of grief.

Grief is not a maybe; it is a certainty. It is something that will happen. And that is something that Author Anne Lamott understood. She wrote:

You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through. It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp (Anne Lamott)

Maybe that is the hope of all of us victims of grief: we may limp, but that doesn't mean that we can't still dance.

The Psalmist, Asaph, is suffering from grief. He is experiencing loss and feels like God is far from him. The Psalmist is broken and hurting. And one of the effects of deep grief is that we can't sleep. We are tired, often absolutely exhausted, and yet our eyes refuse to close; our mouths work, but there are no words that come out of our lips, or sometimes it is the wrong words or words that don't make sense. All of these things are a function of the emotional pain that accompanies grief.

Asaph knows that the only one who can help him in this moment of pain is God. And so, he cries out to God for help. Help to be able to push back at grief; help to be able to close his eyes and open his mouth. Maybe part of his hope was that God would not just allow him to see, but that God would teach him to dance, even if it were with a limp.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 78