75 Bible Verses to Help Manage Grief

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Life is hard.

My heart is aching today for many reasons. If you’ve lost a loved one, then you know that life is never the same afterwards. As Christians, we can take our burdens to the Lord. We can have the peace of God in our hearts when we are attempting to manage grief, amen?

One of the difficulties in losing my precious Taylor girl after 22 years of fighting MPS is that there is no finish line for the grieving process on this earth. I met with a wise friend last week who used the phrase, “We’re managing grief.” Grief never goes away. As a checklist kind of person, this process of continual grief management is daunting. Maybe you’ve been there? Or perhaps you are there right now.

A sweet friend recently sent me a beautiful Scripture box that arrived in the perfect moment. This week I’ve been filling it up with Bible verses to help manage grief. The hole in my heart cannot be filled, and understanding the pain of this world is impossible. But I can choose whether to sulk in my sorrow or savor the promises of the God of all comfort, the Healer of my Sweet T.

While grief saturates my soul, I long for it to cause an expansion that will only soak in more of all God has for me.

I have been pouring over these 75 Bible verses for a time of grief and wanted to share them with you.

When Your Heart Aches

I am severely afflicted; LORD, give me life through Your word.  Psalm 119:107 HCSB

I am worn out from sobbing. All night I flood my bed with weeping, drenching it with my tears.

My vision is blurred by grief; my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.

Go away, all you who do evil, for the LORD has heard my weeping. Psalm 6:6-8 NLT

This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. Psalm 119:153 ESV

Hear my prayer, LORD, and listen to my cry for help; do not be silent at my tears. For I am a foreigner residing with You, a temporary resident like all my fathers.  Psalm 39:12 HCSB

Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant. Psalm 119:76 ESV

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 ESV

Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also. Psalm 31:9 ESV

When There’s No Light at the End of the Tunnel

The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.

Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. Isaiah 60:19&20 ESV

Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.

The LORD will send His faithful love by day; His song will be with me in the night– a prayer to the God of my life. Psalm 42:7&8 HCSB

And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. I Peter 1:5&6 NLT

When You’re Tired of the Tears

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Revelation 21:4 NIV

Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. John 16:20-22 ESV

The Lord found them in a desert land, in an empty, howling wasteland. He surrounded them and watched over them; he guarded them as he would guard his own eyes. Deuteronomy 23:10 NLT

When You Need Confident Courage to Keep Going

So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you. Deuteronomy 31:6 NLT

You will be delivered by returning and resting; your strength will lie in quiet confidence. Isaiah 30:15 HCSB

For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10 ESV

You who are my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me. Jeremiah 8:18 NIV

Those who mourn are blessed, for they will be comforted.  Matthew 5:4 HCSB

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Revelation 7:17

For He has not despised or detested the torment of the afflicted. He did not hide His face from him but listened when he cried to Him for help.  Psalm 22:24 HCSB

I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul. Psalm 31:7 ESV

The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalm 18:2 NIV

When You Simply Need Comfort

In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. Psalm 120:1 ESV

In all their suffering, He suffered, and the Angel of His Presence saved them. He redeemed them because of His love and compassion; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of the past.  Isaiah 63:9 ESV

He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.  2 Corinthians 1:4 HCSB

You, LORD, hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry. Psalm 10:17 NIV

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.

We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:8&9 NLT

But as for me–poor and in pain– let Your salvation protect me, God. Psalm 69:29 HCSB

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:4 ESV

When You Are Exhausted from the Suffering

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me…Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:4&6 NLT

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,

comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. 2 Thessalonians 2:17 ESV

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” I Corinthians 12:54&55 NIV

When You Need Hope to Rise Again

For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling;

I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. Psalm 116:15 ESV

In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?…

You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Psalm 56:4&8 ESV

Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35, 38&39 ESV

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10 NIV

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you. I Peter 1:3&4

When You Need Hope

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. Lamentations 3:21-23 ESV

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed….

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” 1 Corinthians 15:52&54 ESV

But the LORD watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his unfailing love.

He rescues them from death and keeps them alive in times of famine. Psalm 33:18&19 NLT

For he has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy. He has not turned his back on them, but has listened to their cries for help. Psalm 22:24 NLT

The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. Psalm 9:9 HCSB

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1 ESV

I say: The LORD is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in Him.  Lamentations 3:24 HCSB

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. I Thessalonians 4:!6 NIV

When Your Heart Is Heavy

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. Isaiah 43:2 NLT

For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock. Psalm 27:5 ESV

So I say, “I am grieved that the right hand of the Most High has changed.” 

I will remember the LORD’s works; yes, I will remember Your ancient wonders. 

I will reflect on all You have done and meditate on Your actions. 

God, Your way is holy. What god is great like God? 

You are the God who works wonders; You revealed Your strength among the peoples.  Psalm 77:10-14 HCSB

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Therefore encourage one another with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 ESV

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3&4

But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us… 2 Corinthians 7:6 ESV

Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. Romans 8:18 NLT

Likewise 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. Romans 8:26 ESV

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26 NIV

May you sense his Spirit through the reading of His Word. I’m so grateful for it.

By his grace,

Rachel

Letters to Taylor: On Battles- a mother’s letter to her dying daughter

20 Bible Verses for When You’ve Lost a Loved One

Below is the Scripture memory box I mentioned above that a reader asked me to share.

Strong in the Lord – Mug, Ceramic Box, Cross, and Plaque Gift Set