Words are amazing things. They can express beauty and just as easily, they can express the ugliest parts of our soul. They build up and enthrone the lowly and tear down the arrogant. And vice versa. Words, when used masterfully, can eloquently express some of the deepest human emotions. There is, however, one emotion that, in my experience, cannot be expressed with words: grief.
I’m acquainted with grief. Not in the same way that Isaiah 53 describes Jesus as being “acquainted with grief”. But grief and I are acquaintances. We’ve met before and every so often I’ll pass him on the street, but he’s not a close friend that sticks by my side. I have no experience with chronic grief…yet.
I know people who know grief quite well though: friends and family who have experienced tragedy. When tragedy strikes, like lightning, it burns the ground. Even if it never hit me, the static is still in the air and my friend is shocked. I’ve experienced grief in this way: grief for a friend or family member who has experienced tragedy and feels their own grief.
When tragedy strikes and grief sets in, I realize that words, so often useful in expressing thoughts and feelings, don’t stand up to the task of expressing grief. There are no words that one could use in moments like these that could satisfactorily get the job done. We use phrases like “words fail” to express the inexpressibleness of our feelings.
In these moments of grief, when the inadequacy of words discourage us, I have learned to turn to Romans 8 for encouragement and comfort. In verse 26, Paul encourages the church in Rome by declaring to them that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” In the same way, in Job 37:19, Elihu cries out and says, “Teach us what we shall say to him; we cannot draw up our case because of darkness.”
Jesus, as a man of sorrows who was acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53), knows the deep grief that we all face and he knows the challenge that we face in properly expressing our empathy and love for the grieving. God, in his love and grace, has provided a way for our deepest spiritual groaning to be expressed through the Spirit.
When the lightning strikes and leaves us shocked and numb, the Spirit knows our soul’s deepest longings and fears and expresses them before the Father when there are no human words to turn to.