Forgotten But Not Forsaken

There is something though about one morning I had coffee and I looked out and it's foggy, it's gray. It's like, man, it's really dark. Kind of reminds me like of Columbus, like, oh, so no sun. But through all of the cloudy fogginess were evergreens. And it was everywhere, everywhere, everything was green. Lawns were plush green. There was no brown. There was nothing. There was nothing that looked dead. In the midst of it was all of this life. I was like, oh, that's a message right there. That— how do you thrive in dark times and still live fully like an evergreen? That's kind of like Joseph, what we're looking at in the story of Joseph. Darkness all around him, and yet he's being called, or maybe compelled, or maybe invited into living like an evergreen. Don't let the stuff, don't let the fogginess impact you internally. Don't let the darkness consume you to the point where you lose who you are or who you were made to be. Don't be like these trees in Columbus. Be like the trees in Portland that are evergreen. Well, last week, uh, Pastor Micah looked at Joseph in Potiphar's house and talked about the integrity that Joseph was compelled to live under while living in obscurity, while no one was really noticing him except someone who was trying to exploit him for their own purposes. And yet he remained solid in his character. He remained solid in his conviction. In his call to God to be faithful in who God has called him to be. His soul was being tested before he could be trusted. Now, most of us know the story of Joseph. You've either seen it on animated screen, you know, or you have heard about it in Bible study classes or children's classes or just your own reading of the scripture. And sometimes we can read too quickly to notice and pay attention to what is happening inside of this character, this individual that goes by the name of Joseph. He's ultimately being formed by one loss, one grief after another. One loss, one grief after another is forming something inside of him. The Emotionally Healthy framework that we're going to be looking at this week is going back to go forward. It's the counterintuitive path where we descend even deeper into our grief and our loss rather than escape it. You're like, man, he's already experienced so much. What next could he experience? He could experience what it's like to be forgotten but not forsaken. That's the title of the message today, Forgotten But Not Forsaken. The main idea that I want to draw us to today is that grief and loss are not interruptions to your spiritual formation. They're not interruptions to your spiritual formation. They are one of its primary instruments to forming you in your person. The way through grief is not around it. It's through it, right? When we grieve well, our souls are enlarged, the capacity for us to be able to take in more is enlarged when we go through grief. Now let me say this, we at Sanctuary Columbus have talked extensively about grief and loss, so much so that it might feel like this is another message that we've heard over and over again. So let this be a reminder to you then, if you've already heard this message and you're already grasped grief and loss, I got that rich check, moving on. Let this just be a reminder to you and maybe perhaps something in the message that you can share with somebody else who is going through and experiencing grief and loss. But if you are, uh, somebody who's actually going through that grief and loss today, I hope that the message first of all helps you to identify that God is in this with you and that you are not in your grief and your loss alone, that there is a pathway through the grief to grow from it and to become someone who is enlarged in their capacity to hold hard things and yet be like that evergreen in the fog, still producing life. Let us pray. The only most gracious Lord and Savior, I thank you for this day that you have made. The angels rejoice in heaven and are glad about it. They are celebrating the fact that you have made us and you have made this day, and they are watching to see How will we respond? Will we respond like them with celebration and awe and wonder? Will we respond like Jesus, who came down into earth and engaged with hard things, pressed in and maintained hope and joy? The angels encourage us even today while we are here in this worship service celebrating the Almighty God, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The angels join with us in that worship, in that chorus. Christ our King, be enthroned, be lifted high. We lift you up, Lord, because there is no one like you. As we enter into this message today about grief and loss, It is something that all of us have experienced at one point or time in another, and some of us have moved right past it, Lord. Some of us have stuck right there in the grief, in the loss. Meet us right where we are, we do pray in Jesus' name, and help us to move forward by going back. In Jesus' strong, powerful name I do pray, amen. So we're in Genesis chapter 40. I'm going to read verses 1 through 8, and I'm gonna Uh, this story actually takes us through 40 and 41. Let's look at verse 1. Genesis chapter 40, verse 1. You can read along with me if you like. Sometime later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard. In the same prison where Joseph was confined. The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them. After they had been in custody for some time, each of the two men, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt who were being held in prison, had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own. When Joseph came to them the next morning, He saw that they were dejected, so he asked Pharaoh's officials who were in custody with him in his master's house, 'Why do you look so sad today?' 'We both had dreams,' they answered, 'but there is no one to interpret them.' Then Joseph said to them, 'Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.' This is the word of the Lord. The people said, Thanks be to God. Let this word fill our minds, flow from our mouths, and free our hearts to live as the beloved children of God. So Joseph is in prison. Surprise. After that situation with Potiphar, Potiphar's wife, he was thrown into prison. And two inmates arrive, a cupbearer and a baker, who somehow have fallen out of favor with Pharaoh. And we don't know what they did to deserve it. We don't know if the punishment was just. We don't know if the punishment fit the crime. The text doesn't invite us to speculate why they are there. It just tells us that they're there. And what it does show us is this, is that when these men woke up troubled by their dreams, Joseph noticed. He saw them. He saw that they were discomforted. He, he saw that they were agitated. He saw that there was something wrong with them, and he asked them why they looked so sad. Now, this surprises me because Joseph, who's been through so much, who's got his own stuff to deal with, finds the capacity to have compassion for somebody else going through their stuff as well. He did not withhold his gift of interpreting dreams because there was nothing in it for him in particular. The text says he attended to them fully. He attended to them generously. He attended to them without the promise of any kind of return. And I want to press in on that for a moment because Joseph's position did not determine his purpose. His position in the prison did not determine his purpose to serve God and to be a blessing to others. The hardship that he was enduring didn't turn his heart hard. Did you notice that? The hardship that he was enduring did not turn his heart hard. He was still able to look outward. He was still able to feel for others in their confusion. He was still able to offer what he had for the sake of other people. And you know, when you going through something, when you're going through some difficulty, when you're going through some hardship, how difficult it is to acknowledge the pain of somebody else. You looking at them and you saying, well, listen, I'm going through my own stuff. I don't really have time to help you out. I got my own ish to deal with. I don't really have time to deal with your ish, okay? I have my own worries. I've got my own problems. I really don't under— I, I don't have the capacity. I don't have the interest. I don't have the energy to deal with anybody else's stuff. Can you be attentive while you are in a difficult season? Can you be attentive to God while you're in your difficult season? Can you be attentive to others in your family while you're going through a difficult season? Can you be attentive to the, the folk on your job while you're going through a difficult season? Or has the hardship that you're carrying turned your heart hard? Has the hardship turned your heart hard and now it's difficult for you to attend to God or attend to others because your heart is hard. Joseph somehow was able to still have empathy for somebody else who was struggling in their life, struggling in their faith, struggling in their prison, struggling in their waiting. But instead of hiding himself and hiding his gifts, he put his gifts to work on behalf of others. Even when there was no promise of return. He could have said nothing. He could have just seen them and said nothing at all. They look messed up. I wonder what's wrong with them. Ain't none of my business. Let me keep it moving. He could have said, hey, what's going on with you? You look kind of sad. And they said, man, we had these dreams. It's been troubling us. I've been able to sleep all night. He'd be like, man, That's messed up for you. Meanwhile, he has the ability to listen. The first thing he— he doesn't just go off and just feel confident that he's going to be able to interpret the dream. The first thing he says is, tell me, tell me. I'm curious, I'm interested. He takes the position and posture of a listener. For somebody else who's going through some stuff, One of the first things you can do is just listen. Have you noticed and pay attention that something is wrong with them? You give them your ear, you listen. And so Joseph listened, and yes, he interprets the dream. You read the text further, he interprets the dream. The cupbearer's dream means that he's going to be restored. He's going to go back into Pharaoh's court. You get your job back, man. Cupbearer is happy. So the baker hears it, he's like, oh snap, cupbearer gets to go back! All right, listen, here's my dream, Joseph. And he tells Joseph his dream, and Joseph says, yeah, um, not only are you going to have to stay in this prison, they gonna take your life. He feels dejected. Because both of these dreams come true, just as Joseph has said. And the cupbearer, as he is walking out of prison— I can see the scene now, he's being released— and Joseph says, hey man, remember me. Remember me when you get to the court. Remember me when you get to Pharaoh. And he even goes on to say, because I was sold into slavery and I shouldn't even be here. I didn't even do anything wrong to deserve this prison that I'm in. I didn't do anything wrong to deserve this hardship that I'm experiencing. Man, remember me. If there's anybody worth remembering, it ought to be somebody who doesn't deserve where they are experiencing the hardship. It ought to be somebody who serves in the midst of hardship when they don't have to. That's the kind of person you want to remember, right? But here are the next 2 verses in Genesis 40:23 and 41:1. He forgot him. The chief cupbearer did not remember him. And in case you don't understand what that means, he forgot him. And then 41:1, because it goes together. When two full years— everybody say, when two full years. When two full years had passed. Let's just stop right there. He forgot him. Brother, I did all of that for you, and two years pass and you have forgotten? Has anybody ever felt forgotten? You ever felt forgotten? Maybe not dramatically forgotten, just overlooked. Nothing real big. It wasn't that obvious to the whole world. It was a quiet, silent kind of, with no explanation, forgotten. The Hebrew language here carries the sense um, which is kind of obvious, of measured time, but not vague elapsed time. They want us to know Joseph was counting the days. 2 years, you know how long 2 years is? Come on, mathematicians, 730 days. You know how many hours that is? 17,500 and 20 hours. That's a long time. Do you know the song? 5,525,600 minutes. Oh, how do you measure, measure a year? 525,600 minutes. How do you measure a year in the life? In daylight, in sunrise, in trumpets, in cups of coffee, in something something in the wintertime. Yeah, 500, 525,600 minutes measuring love. Measure what? Love. That song was a jam. Time matters. Time matters. It's not insignificant how long you've gone through the hardship because it matters. Beloved, if you've gone through something, one of the worst things you can do is ignore the amount of time you've been going through it. Mm. But one of the worst things we do, even as Christians, is we say, you ought to be over this by now. How long ago did that happen? You should be over this by now. Haven't things changed in your life? You should be over this By now. And what the text wants us to know is that time matters. Don't ignore the time that you've experienced or dealt with the hardship, the loss. And there are two kinds of losses that I want to draw our attention to. One is catastrophic loss. That's the loss that sometimes we're easy to acknowledge. It's the one that shakes our foundations. It's the The death, the betrayal, the divorce, the diagnosis, the being fired from your job, the financial loss, the catastrophic loss is that boom, explosive loss. Difficult to get over, but those are the ones that we kind of recognize easily. But then there's that other kind of loss. It's just ordinary. That's the quieter grief. That's the unexamined parts of your life, the unmet expectations, the deferred dreams, the things you've been praying about but you haven't seen any change, transitions in your life, illusions about God that no longer serve your faith journey, the church that was supposed to be the secure place, the place that would wrap around leaving you empty. Even the ordinary loss of ourselves— you losing yourself is a kind of grief. It's a kind of grief. One of the surprising ordinary griefs I wasn't prepared for was sending our kids off to college. It's like, man, just all of a sudden— I mean, I raised you for 18 years, you're in my life, I know where you at and everything, so forth and so on, and then I just send you overnight, and I don't hear from you except on scheduled calls on Sunday evening. And but I don't know what you're doing or, or how you're doing it unless I check in with Shala, who has Life360, and she can tell me exactly where you are. I wasn't prepared for the kind of grief that I would experience in sending my children No way. I love my kids. I like my kids. I enjoy my children. And yes, I'm happy for them. And somebody says, well, isn't that what you're supposed to do? No, daggone it. Just because you don't like your kids don't mean I have to not like mine. You know what I'm saying? Again, we don't know what to say when somebody's going through these kinds of losses and griefs. One of the best questions we could just ask is, well, how is that impacting you? How are you— how do you feel about that? What has that meant for you and your family? What, what changes do you notice? Some that are maybe perhaps positive, like you have more hot water in your house now because you have two people who don't have to take up all the hot water. It's practical stuff. Now, we're not oftentimes accustomed to dealing with losses because of the way we've looked at them, but prison was long for Joseph. He had an opportunity to look at both the catastrophic loss and the ordinary losses of his life. And in EHS language, Pete Scarzero calls this going back to go forward. It is the path to emotional and spiritual health that runs through losses and not around them. And you say, I mean, I'm looking at this, I'm like, Lord, Joseph has experienced all kinds of loss. How far back does the brother have to go? He experienced the loss of his brothers kidnapping him, throwing him in a pit, and then selling him into slavery. And then he sold to somebody else, and, and then he's tempted and then accused and now thrown into prison and interpreting other people's dreams, and they have forgotten about him and time has passed. What more does he have to experience? And beloved, that question does not serve us. What, what more do I have to experience? Laura, how much do I have to go through this? Why do I have to go through this again? Those questions do not serve us because Jesus promised, in this life you will have trouble. So as long as you are living, as long as I am living, we are going to have trouble. Trouble. We are going to have difficulties. Difficulties. We are going to have catastrophic and ordinary losses that we deal with in our lives. What do we do with that kind of grief? Some of us have learned to perform spiritual okayness. Spiritual okayness. When someone asks how we're doing, we say, man, it couldn't be better. You know, we say, man, it is what it is, you know what I'm saying? Or we get real spiritual and say God is working all things for good. And yes, The Lord is. But a pain that isn't named is a pain that is not healed. A pain that isn't named is a pain that is not healed. It hides, it goes underground, and over time you think you're hiding it, but it is leaking. It's leaking out in cynicism, it's leaking out in impatience, it's leaking out in, uh, a slow withdrawal from God. It leaks out in things. You say things like, well, I don't really need to pray. I don't really need to go to church. I don't really need to attend a small group. I don't really need other people. You know what? I just got— man, the Christians are on my nerves right now. I get more life from the non-Christians than I do from the Christians. So let me just go spend time with these non-Christian Folk, we leak. You leak. You leak, you leak, you start, and that leak starts to look like compromises that you otherwise wouldn't compromise for, but now it's just become acceptable. Man, this does something to us though that I don't know if we're really consciously aware of it. Neuroscience has also confirmed what scripture has always known. That the brain processes these social losses— being forgotten, rejected, and excluded— in the same neural regions as physical pain. So if your neighbor was to slap you right now— I'm not saying slap your neighbor, that's another church, they do that in other churches, we don't do that here. Do not slap your neighbor. Slap your neighbor and tell them that hurt, you know what I'm saying? But that physical pain is the same kind of pain your brain processes when you're going through grief and loss. And we can recognize physical pain because it shows up, but grief and loss, internal pain, sometimes doesn't show up, but your brain receives it the exact same way. Uh, Naomi Essenberger says that anterior cingulate cortex, which registers pain signals, activates identically whether the wound is bodily or it is relational. In other words, when it tells us in the text that he was forgotten, it's not a metaphor for being hurt. It is the hurt. Forgotten is the hurt. Left alone is the hurt. The unprocessed grief, beloved, doesn't disappear. It lives in the body, and it shows up as disrupted sleep. It shows up as a contracted chest, tightness in your chest. It shows up as low-grade vigilance where it never quite settles. It shows up as chronic skepticism. And this is why the Psalms are so physically embodied. Listen to Psalm 31:9: Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress. My eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning. My strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones— he says it in his body— my bones grow weak. In the In the yoga world, where I practice, you know, yoga, we talk about these centers and these center points and that where emotions are actually trapped in your body in certain places. Like if you have a tightness in your hips, it is a signal for a kind of stress that you are going through. Anybody ever been to a chiropractor? Chiropractor will tell you the same thing. You got a lot of stress up here in your neck. Are you doing this? Are you doing that? You got a lot of stress down here in your knee. Are you doing this? Are you doing that? And suddenly they are connecting the body and the spirit together because they understand and they know what I just read in that Psalm, that your soul is impacted by grief, loss, stress, anxiety, anguish, all of that. Is held in your body. That's why you got to get it out. Anybody ever just have like a shouting session? No? Okay, if you haven't, let me encourage you. The next time you are in your car by yourself, holler. I don't mean just kind of holler, I mean like holler like nobody's listening. Can we practice right now? It's going to be loud. I want you to imagine that you have stress. Just imagine you're going through a hardship right now. Just imagine a catastrophic loss or an ordinary— just, I don't know, just, just try humor me for a second. You're in the car now by yourself, and the, the pain and the stress is unbearable. And you close your eyes and holler. 3, 2, 1. Now that was a quick one, okay. That was a quick one. I wanted to prepare those who were hearing impaired or, you know, whatever, that just, you know. David groans, he weeps, he cries out. I encourage you to groan, to weep, and to cry out. It's not overly dramatic. It's called being human, and God honors that. And if these are under or undeveloped parts of your spiritual formation, let me invite you to the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality mini conference next Saturday. We call it a mini conference because it's a little longer than a workshop. It's from 10 AM to 2 PM. You're going to be fed, you're going to be nurtured physically and spiritually. Pastor Micah, Dr. Angela, and Naomi, won't y'all wave your hands? These are our practitioners. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, these are our— yeah, hold it up. These are our practitioners for next Saturday's Emotionally Healthy Spirituality mini-conference. If it's an underdeveloped area of your formation, I encourage you to come out. All right, let me continue on the rest of the story. Genesis 41. What happens in this, uh, you know, waiting period after 2 years? Well, the cupbearer goes back to the king, and the king, Pharaoh, has a dream. And then the cupbearer's like, man, you know what? I was in prison 2 years ago. I don't know if you remember that, Pharaoh. You threw me in prison, but 2 years ago I was in prison and I had a dream, and there was this guy who could interpret dreams. And so this is where we pick up, verse 14. Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and they quickly brought him to the dungeon. He shaved, changed his clothes, and went to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I have had a dream. No one can interpret it, but I have heard it said about you that you can hear a dream and interpret it. And then Joseph said, I am not able to. It is God who will give Pharaoh a favorable answer. So I'm going to wrap up the message right now. It's 3 things to do while you're waiting. Number 1 is to serve while you wait. I know that's counterintuitive, particularly a lot of times when we've talked about grief and loss, we've talked about sitting still and getting silent. I'm actually encouraging you to think and consider another pathway is to serve while you wait. Most of us don't like waiting as it is. We prefer control. And so I'm not, I'm not saying reach for control. That looks like Sarah and Abraham who didn't believe that the promise was going to come through from— they couldn't wait, so they got Hagar and then birthed an Ishmael. I'm not encouraging us to just get busy. I'm encouraging us to serve. I'm encouraging us not to take matters into our own hands, but I'm encouraging you to live out of the character of who God has made you to be. Because waiting does not have to be idle. It can be a season of service. And before Joseph reaches his shining moment, he has learned throughout the multiple years Scholars say that he was around 17 years old when he was sold into slavery, and he's about 30 right now as he stands before Pharaoh, somewhere in his early 30s. So he's had more than a decade of going through hardship, more than a decade before he reaches this shining moment, more than a decade of learning how to live with pain and not bypass it, learning how to deal with his emotions, his stresses, his anxieties, and continuing to serve others. He serves while he waits. Can you imagine now the cupbearer and the baker bringing their dream to Joseph, and Joseph saying, I ain't got time for that, let them— let God deal with them, let them just— let them go on their own? And I'm not saying this is going to work perfectly for you, Joseph is not meant for us to be— Joseph's story is not meant for us to be prescriptive. Do this and this will happen to you. Go through your hardships and you'll get a promotion too. That's not what I'm saying. But there are principles here that we learn and we can grow from. Continue to put your gifts to work even while you're in the hardship. Serve while you wait. Number 2, recognize your own limitations. What happens in the waiting if we stay? It tells us what Joseph said. I can't do it. Hey Pharaoh, you need to interpret this dream. I can't do it, but God can. It's not about me, Pharaoh. It's about what God desires and what God wants. I can't do it, but God will give the answer that God desires. And this shows the trajectory of Joseph's humility. The story began with him telling everybody about his dreams and, 'I'm gonna be a big shot and all of y'all are going to bow down to me,' to now he is humbled, he's calculated, he is very meticulous about when and where and how he shares his gifts with others. And he does what some of us are unwilling to do: he accepts his weakness as a limitation. Some of us are unwilling to accept our weakness as a limitation, and we just push right past I'm just going to push right past it. Can you imagine the tension? I want to get out of prison. You're standing before the person who can get you out. Make a promise to them that their dream will be favorable. My God, he understands and recognizes, listen, I've got limitations here in who I am, and this is not a resignation. This is a declaration of humility. That can only be formed on the other side of disappointment. That he noticed that God was always with him even though it was difficult. And then number 3, allow the old to birth something new. Allow the old to birth something new. Joseph is a new person. The old Joseph is passed away. Here's what the story says in verse 39. Pharaoh said to Joseph after he interpreted his dream, since God has made all of this known to you, there is no one as discerning and wise as you are. You will be over my house, and all my people will obey your commands. Only I as king will be greater than you. And Pharaoh also said to Joseph, see, I am placing you over all the land of Egypt. This is where everybody cheers. Yay, it worked out for Joseph! Yay, he only spent 13 or 14 years in despair! Yay! And if you know the story, the story isn't over. He still got more grief and loss to process, to do. Yeah, and notice This only comes after a very real death, a death to his old self. He has to let his old self go. The old self that was clothed in a colorful robe, the old self that the way he thought the dream was going to be realized and actualized, he had to let it go. He had to let it go. Jesus says this in the Gospel of John 12:24: Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it only remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. That seed planted in the ground goes through a kind of death. On the other side, we would consider it a metamorphosis, right? But even in a metamorphosis, The old is gone and the new is come. So when that seed is planted in the ground, it dies and it bursts forth a new kind of energy that springs out of the ground to produce a new kind of fruit, a new kind of plant, a new kind of life. And this is the cruciform pattern of the cross. The cruciform pattern of the cross runs through every kind of life that has been handed to God that experiences its own kind of death in order for it to experience its new life. And this is the kind of thing that we often want to avoid, but God wants to bring us well through it. So beloved, what kind of loss are you carrying right now that you have yet to name before God? I want to invite you to a Lenten grief inventory, because research shows us that expressive writing consistently shows us that naming and narrating painful experiences rather than suppressing them leads to measurable improvements in our emotional life and regulation and leads to long-term well-being. So here's your Lenten grief inventory, should you choose to accept it. First, find 10 quiet minutes this week. Just 10. 10 quiet minutes this week, preferably in a, in a place where you can be alone. And I don't mean like— I mean alone without distraction, just 10 minutes. And take out a sheet of paper, real practical. Don't do this on your phone, do it handwritten. I know y'all, I don't do— just find a pen, a paper somewhere, and at the top write these words: What am I grieving that I haven't named before God? What am I grieving that I haven't named before God and just make a list. Make a list without even editing it, without trying to erase or trying to get the words right. Make the list without editing it and without theologizing it, without like, yes, but I'm going through this, but yes, and you know, no, no, just list it and then pray over it. With these words: God, I bring this list to you. What's next? Don't ask what's next. Don't ask how long. Don't ask when will it be over. Just bring the list to God. And if you want to take it even deeper, you can ask this question of yourself: What may God be forming in me through this loss that I cannot yet see? I can't see it, but what might God be forming in me as a result? Hear those two verses again. 40:23, he forgot him. 41:1, when two full years had passed. God wasn't the one that forgot Joseph, it was the baker that forgot him. God didn't put Joseph into the pit. His brothers put him into the pit. He was sold into slavery. He was tempted. He was accused. God wasn't the one that forgot about him, but God was still forming something in him. And beloved, if you are in a season like that where it feels like 2 years, some measured time that has no expiration date. If you feel forgotten, if you feel stuck, if you feel unseen, the story of Joseph is not prescriptive. It's not a promise that it will end soon or that it will even end in some great glory, but it does remind us that God is forming us in the midst of all of our hardships. And that God doesn't want our hearts to turn hard as a result of the hardness. Let us pray. Heavenly, most gracious Lord, all of us have experienced grief and loss to one degree or another, and all of us are in positions, places, relationships of walking with people who are experiencing their grief and loss and hardship. Perhaps even right now. Beloved, would you begin to pray for somebody else right now who's going through a hardship? Lord, in this prayer, as I am praying, your beloved children are now praying and interceding for somebody else. Somebody's praying, Lord, who's going through their own hardship for somebody else because they recognize and know that we are in this humanity experiencing grief and loss together. So as they pray, as they intercede, will you hear their prayer, O God? Hear their intercession. Hear their words of hope, of sadness, Hear their prayer of resilience and strength. Hear their prayers of weakness and embracing limitations and join them. Thank you, Lord, because you are so good that you don't leave us alone in the pit. While it feels like it, help us to know and trust until we see it that you are right there with us. The strong name of Jesus we do pray. Amen.