Reading the Bible when life is hard
Longer pieces on the passages people reach for when they are worn out, grieving, anxious or afraid, and on what those passages actually say in context.
Bible Verses for Work Burnout: The Passage Where Someone Else Says It First
In Exodus 18 an outsider watches Moses work a full day alone and says the arrangement is the problem. For people who cannot simply leave the job.
Bible Verses for Guilt and Shame: As Far as the East Is From the West
For anyone who has confessed it, apologized, tried to put it right, and still cannot put it down. One passage that describes, rather than instructs.
Bible Verses for Peace of Mind: One That Was Said to Frightened People
The verse most offered for peace of mind was spoken hours before an arrest, to a room about to lose everything. What surrounds it changes how it reads.
Waiting on God's timing when the wait has gone on for years
A psalm that asks how long four times and does not answer it, for people waiting on a pregnancy, a job or a visa, and the sayings that make it worse.
What not to say to someone grieving
The phrases bereaved people say landed worst, with something to send instead beside each one, and why the sentences that explain a death are the hardest.
What to say when you do not know what to say
What the research says about staying silent, what to do instead of hunting for words, and why a message in week six lands better than people expect.
What to say to someone whose parent died
What to send when a friend loses a mother or father, what not to mention, and the harder versions: a long illness, dementia, estrangement, a colleague.
Bible verses for the loss of a child
One passage that does not try to account for anything, the two verses most often brought to bereaved parents, and where the angel phrase came from.
Grief that comes back months later
Why grief returns in the later months, what Cruse and Marie Curie say about the second year, and a psalm that asks the same question four times over.