FamilyLife Today®

Chris Brooks: Loss is like being put into the spin cycle of life. It twirls you around and around and around. Maybe before the loss came, you were walking towards God, but after the loss, your knees are wobbly, your direction is disoriented, and you can find yourself unexpectedly walking away from God.

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today®, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife.

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, and we are cruising again, in a way.

Dave Wilson: I mean, we're not on a boat, but you're going to be on the boat with us from the Love Like You Mean It® Cruise that we did back in February. We've been playing talks all week from that ship, and it was amazing. Today is going to be Chris and Yodit Brooks, who are pastors in Michigan, actually a mile from where our church is in Michigan. We've known them a long time, and their talk is really about how do you walk through heavy stuff, grief and lament, and seek support. You're going to love today.

But let me just say this: we have a Love Like You Mean It Cruise sale going on for next year's cruise right now. The sale goes through March 31st. If you want to join us next year, the dates are February 13th through 20th. I'm telling you what, you don't want to miss it. It really is a great week for your marriage.

Ann Wilson: It's so good. All you have to do is go to familylifetoday.com to learn more about the cruise and all the details on our Cruise Madness sale. Take a look and book before March 31st because this cruise sells quickly. We'll fill it up, so I think now is the best time and it's going to be a great sale. Don't miss that.

Dave Wilson: I don't even know the details, but I'm guessing it's almost sold out. That's how it works. Most people sign up and re-sign up on the ship before they even get off the cruise. They're signing up for next year because it's that good.

You'll hear talks like you're going to hear today. Again, this is Chris and Yodit Brooks, talking about lament and how they walked through some hard stuff in their life. It's going to help you and me walk through the valleys that we go through as well.

Chris Brooks: What we want to do with our moments that we have with you is talk to you about how you survive as a married couple and thrive through the moments of life that make you cry. The truth of the matter is that there's one of three seasons in every one of our lives: either you're in a storm currently, you just came out of a storm, or you're headed into a storm. Either way, you want to be equipped and ready to survive and thrive.

There's a lot that has been written in the past—not in a contemporary sense, but in the past—about grief and loss. If you were to study the subject, it's important for you to understand a concept. The concept comes from the ancient church, and it's called the Dark Night of the Soul.

Has anyone ever heard of this concept before? Show me your hands. A few of you. The Dark Night of the Soul. What is the Dark Night of the Soul? This quote comes from an ancient theologian, John of the Cross. He says this: "Everyone will experience a period of spiritual suffering, abandonment, and feeling far from God. This is the Dark Night of the Soul."

How many out there have ever experienced a season where you felt like God was far away? Have you ever gone through a season of suffering and you cried out, "God, where are you? How could You allow this to happen?" When suffering goes from a moment, or common suffering as it's called, to a deep season of disorientation, that's the Dark Night of the Soul, and that's what we want to talk to you about tonight.

I want my wife to just take a moment and share our story of the Dark Night of the Soul from our lives. It really goes back to 2019. We had just gone through a major ministry transition. We were starting in a new ministry. I'm a pastor and we get a chance to serve together, and we were really optimistic entering into this season. Then, unexpectedly, we ran into a season of the Dark Night of the Soul.

Yodit Brooks: It was a big challenge. It's the best of times and the worst of times. We were experiencing some wonderful things in many ways: the newness of ministry, some different joys in our family. But very quickly, it would become also the worst of times simultaneously.

We were starting in a new ministry, and you know life can be very hectic in that time. We were doing a lot of different things. This particular Monday in March starts off similar to any other Monday. We get our kids together, make sure everybody's ready for school.

Chris was getting ready to go off to a retreat with some of these new leaders that he was now working alongside of—an opportunity to get to know one another, to bond, to work together. As the day was progressing, I unexpectedly got a phone call from Chris, and he had desperation in his voice.

He asked me to meet him because he needed to talk to me. At that time, we connected and he gave me the news that no husband should ever have to give their wife. It was the devastating fact that he had just received a phone call from the police that our oldest son had died.

I cannot express the whirlwind that we found ourselves in on that day. We went from inconsolably crying in each other's arms and trying to make sense of the reality to having to now explain this to our children, what happened to their brother, their big brother whom they loved so much and had their own individual relationships with. We had to share this with our family, our extended family, our church, our loved ones.

All of a sudden, it was just the beginning of this Dark Night of the Soul, the moment you can never imagine that comes. We were faced in that time with options. The question is: how are we going to respond to this? Initially, we did what a lot of people do. We just kept moving. We just kept trying to get through the day, through the next thing and the next thing.

I'm going to be honest with you: we pushed all the way through that funeral, and I came home and collapsed on the floor under the weight of all that grief. All that grief had not had any time to be dealt with as we were just moving along. We were faced with a moment where we said, "Either we're going to die in this along with our son, or we're going to survive." The choice that we made individually, because it is an individual choice, was to survive.

But there would have to be more that God had for us, and He did. We made a decision at that point. We can't just survive; we need to learn how to thrive in our marriage, in our family, in ministry. None of that was going to happen until we learned how to fully grieve his loss and all of the other things we endured.

Chris Brooks: That's what we want to talk to you guys about. We recognize that your loss, your grief, may be different than ours. What is our goal? Our goal for this time together is to help you build a marriage and a family that is able to survive and, as my wife said, thrive through the Dark Night of the Soul.

What does that look like? I want to give you a picture of what that looks like. My wife is going to read from the Psalms, this Psalm that really gives us a picture of what ultimate success or surviving looks like: Psalm 119:75.

Yodit Brooks: It reads, "I know, O Lord, that your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me."

Chris Brooks: I want you to hear what the Psalmist just said. The Psalmist just said there's two things that I can affirm, God. Not that I understand how this puzzle piece fits into Your plan for my life, but I can affirm two things.

Number one, that Your judgments are righteous. That's one way of saying that God is good. Number two, that You are faithful. You are good and You are faithful. In essence, what the Psalmist was saying is that there will be moments where you cannot track God's actions, but in those moments, you can still trust God's character.

What does it take to survive the Dark Night of the Soul? What does it take to thrive? There's three keys that we're going to give you. If you're taking notes, you just want to write these three keys down. Key number one is you have to have the right perspective on your loss and on your grief.

That's not easy. The truth of the matter is, depending on what branch of Christianity or tradition you come from, you may or may not have been equipped with the tools needed to handle grief and loss. Tonight, it's important for us to remember that God is a God of the valley as well. He is with us in our grief and loss.

One of the concepts that's important for us to remember is that grief is not something you can outrun or just deny your way out of, but it is something that you can grow from. One more thing about perspective, having the right perspective. This comes from the life of Joseph. Many of you know Joseph from the Old Testament, sold by his brothers into slavery, finds himself in a pit, ultimately goes to a prison, then to the palace.

He's the prime minister of the most powerful nation of the world. Then he has a reunion with his brothers later in life, and he says these words: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today."

Our suffering is bigger than us. It says that many people should be kept alive because of the suffering that you went through. Joseph went through unimaginable suffering, unimaginable betrayal, and yet God was able to take that and not only bring glory to Himself but also preserve an entire generation.

That's what God wants to do with your story as well. Moving from isolation to oneness to impact, ultimately what God wants to do is to redeem your pain, redeem your suffering for the good of others. What if God in His providence, in His sovereignty and wisdom, decided that the place of your purpose would be your pain?

What if God had you and I endure certain sufferings in our lives not just because of us? What if some of the sufferings that we went through were to help us to minister more effectively the grace and the goodness of God to others, to be more compassionate, to show more mercy and show more grace?

Would He be unfair if that was part of His plan? The truth of the matter is, He would not be unfair or unjust if He allowed us to experience suffering that was for more than just us, that was for the benefit of others. Let's not forget that the centerpiece of the gospel we proclaim, at the centerpiece of our faith, is a cross.

Jesus went to that cross not because He needed it. How many know that He didn't need salvation? He didn't need forgiveness. But He endured that, He suffered that, because we needed it. When you and I go through grief and loss, we are entering into His sufferings. But remember His promise: that if we suffer with Him, we will also share in His glory as well.

Right now, we're living in the "in-between but not yet," but the promise of God is that He is coming back again. When Jesus comes back again, He promises to redeem all things, even the suffering in our lives.

Dave Wilson: You are listening to FamilyLife Today, and we've been listening to Chris and Yodit Brooks' talk that they gave on the Love Like You Mean It Cruise last February.

Ann Wilson: And I'm just telling you, man, they've walked through the hardest things. When you lose a child, that is just hard. I love that they've been honest and even how it looks so different for the both of them, of how that lament and that grieving looks.

Dave Wilson: So they're going to help you as we go back into part two of their talk.

Chris Brooks: The first thing it takes, the first key, is to have the right perspective. The second key—and this is hugely important—is to learn how to lament.

Yodit Brooks: The practice of lament is one of the most theologically informed things that a person can do. Lament turns toward God when sorrow tempts us to run from Him. This is from Mark Vroegop.

Chris Brooks: Mark Vroegop later wrote an entire book on the spiritual discipline of lament, and it really is a skill. The skill is seen in our ability to fight the temptation to run away from God. Now, some of you have been serving Christ for a long time, you've been walking with Jesus for a long time, and you may be tempted to think like we were: that if pain, suffering, and brokenness came into our lives, that there's no way that would shake our faith or our confidence in God.

But the truth of the matter is that pain, suffering, and loss are very disorienting. Loss is like being put into the spin cycle of life. It twirls you around and around and around. Maybe before the loss came, you were walking towards God, but after the loss, your knees are wobbly, your direction is disoriented, and you can find yourself unexpectedly walking away from God.

"I don't want to go to church anymore. I don't want to read my Bible anymore. I don't want to pray anymore. I don't want to hear from other brothers and sisters in Christ." If you're experiencing this, know that you're not alone and it's not abnormal. The way back home again is to learn the spiritual discipline of lament.

While there aren't a lot of books about lament in our present age, there's a growing amount of resources and we're grateful for that. What is wonderful is that our Bibles are replete with great content on lament. As a matter of fact, the Psalms are full of wonderful wisdom on how to lament well.

We want to walk you through real quickly the four basic steps of lament. We're going to use a very famous Psalm to do that. This Psalm is known as the "How Long" Psalm, and you'll quickly understand why it is called that. It's a lament Psalm, Psalm 13.

Yodit Brooks: Psalm 13: "How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, 'I have prevailed over him,' lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in Your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me."

Chris Brooks: David goes into this process and maybe you noticed it. He starts off with the first step of learning to lament, and that is to turn to God. Notice that his question of "how long" was directed to God. My encouragement to you is to turn to God when your heart hurts the most. Don't run from God like Adam and Eve did in the garden, but run to God.

Secondly, take Him your complaint. We are so used to only taking to Him our celebrations, and we often don't take to Him our complaint, but David took to Him his complaint. Thirdly, ask boldly of God. Ask for His healing, ask for His grace. It's okay to be honest with God, to let Him know that the world is not as it ought to be.

There's a long list of things that I lament, and it's okay for us to be honest with God and to say, "God, I don't like this. It doesn't feel good. The world is not as it ought to be." And to ask boldly: "God, please give me grace, give me strength, help me through this because only You can help us as a couple through this because only You can."

The fourth and final step is to trust God. Maybe you notice the pattern of the Psalms, that they start often with lament, with complaint, with an acknowledgment of the brokenness of the world around them, but they land in the character of God. When we cannot track His actions, we can trust His character, and we can remind ourselves. I want to encourage you: practice reminding yourself that, "Lord, though this does not feel good, I know that You are good and that You are faithful."

The third and final key to surviving and thriving through seasons of grief and loss is to seek counsel and support.

Yodit Brooks: In addition to the Lord, one of the tools He used was the amazing grief counselor that He blessed us with. The grief counselor helped us to see things like the fact that we don't grieve the same.

Chris Brooks: When it came to my son's loss, she wanted to capture everything about him: the scent of his clothes, things that he kept that was artwork of his, or music that he sang. She tried to commemorate every day that was significant: birthdays, anniversaries. All of those things were hard for me because I'm an internalizer. How many out there are internalizers? You bottle it up, you keep it all in. Internalizers unite. Raise your hands if you're with me.

I didn't want to talk about it because I feared that if I opened up the floodgates of grief, it would be a tsunami for my soul and I may not be able to come up for air. So here we are, everything we're doing and how we're trying to grieve for our own hearts is driving us further and further apart. Our counselor helped us to work through that.

In addition to that, we've got five other kids, so they all have different grief styles. On top of that, my mother-in-law lives with us. Y'all pray for a brother. So there's eight of us in a house all grieving differently, all bringing our own grief styles to the party. We had to learn how to work through that.

By God's grace, we learned those skills, and a good counselor can help you with that. We've been able to look up now, seven years later, not only surviving but thriving. We want to leave you with one of our favorite verses, a verse that has come to me much over these past seven years: Psalm 34:18. We'd like to read it together. Can you do that with us? Let's do that. Ready, read.

Chris and Yodit Brooks: "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."

Chris Brooks: You can not only survive your seasons of loss and suffering; you can thrive.

Ann Wilson: This is FamilyLife Today and you've been listening to Chris and Yodit Brooks from a talk that they gave on the Love Like You Mean It Marriage Cruise 2026. Man, that's just helpful. It's a good reminder of what it looks like to lament and to grieve and what that looks like as a couple to do it together.

Dave Wilson: I mean, no couple wants to walk through the Dark Night of the Soul, but we all do. When we do, we need to know how to hang on to God through that valley, and they just helped us today. Maybe it's one of those talks you want to listen to over and over.

Ann Wilson: Or maybe you send it to somebody too, because we all know somebody that's struggling at some time or another.

Dave Wilson: And again, that was a talk they gave on the Love Like You Mean It Cruise ship out in the Caribbean, and we're going back out in February: February 13th through 20th in 2027. We'd love to have you guys join us. Again, you can find out more about that, just go to familylifetoday.com and click on the banner. Hopefully you're not just finding out more; you'll click and say, "We're going to be on the boat with the Wilsons next year."

Ann Wilson: And maybe you think, too, like who could I sign up with me? What's a friend or a family member, or maybe—maybe I'm going to send my kids on this cruise? We talk to so many younger couples that their parents gave this to them as a gift. So just a few things to think about. So don't wait; now is the time to book. Now through March 31st, you can get this Cruise Madness sale. See you then.

FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Crew ministry. 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.