Lamentations 3:21-25
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

I don’t want to feel what I’m feeling this morning. There are things I need to do, and sadness, confusion, and doubt only slow me down. But the hard news keeps barging in—the sudden death in his sleep of Bryan Dunagan, the 44-year-old pastor of the church I grew up in in Dallas.

I didn’t know Bryan personally, only through the pastor grapevine. What I knew was that he was loved, respected, unusually gifted—a leader making a Kingdom impact. So what do we do with this terrible news? Who can make sense of it? Why would God allow it? These are the questions barging in today. And for the thousands who knew him personally, the grief is deeper still.

There are no easy answers. No Christian platitudes work here. There is only sadness, confusion, doubt. The only words I can offer are: I’m so sorry. I’m sad too. I’m confused too. I get the doubt. And it’s okay to sit here and feel it—and to ask those hard questions honestly to God.

The Habit of the Drawers

We’re good at compartmentalizing hard feelings, shoving them into mental drawers so they don’t derail our day. I learned how to do that at age 11, in that same church, when my dad—a pastor there—bolted. My first round of sadness and doubt came then, and I didn’t want to feel it. So I drowned it out with video games, curve balls, and Eagles songs on my Walkman. It was easier to shut my door and play Nerf basketball than to face the truth that my family was falling apart.

As the years went on, I found more sophisticated drawers: girls, drugs, alcohol, work, adventure, money, even ministry. All useful ways to compartmentalize. All ways to keep sadness and confusion and doubt at bay. All ways to avoid asking God the hard questions and waiting, painfully, for answers that never come quick.

Maybe you know those drawers too.

Or Don’t. And Just Lament.

Jeremiah didn’t compartmentalize. He lamented. He named his suffering and laid it bare before God:

Lamentations 1:16
For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed

Raw lament feels risky—exposing to us, even disrespectful to God. But Jeremiah shows us otherwise. He teaches that:

Compartmentalized pain doesn’t heal—it festers. In those hidden drawers it turns moldy and poisonous.

God invites our raw pain. He isn’t surprised by it, insulted by our questions, or shaken by our doubt.

When we lay our grief before Him, we may not get quick answers—but we get Him. A God who is good, who understands, who weeps with us.

Where Grief and Mercy Meet

Jeremiah didn’t lock his pain away. And because he didn’t, he discovered something else that couldn’t be locked away either: God’s abiding mercy and love.

It’s in that raw place—when grief and mercy finally meet—that hope flickers again. Not the cheap kind, but the kind that carries us forward one day at a time.