A Song of Praise to Our God

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This article was written for the August issue of the Lee Creek Baptist Church newsletter, Grace & Peace.

Since my miscarriage last summer, I’ve found myself having conversations of a similar shape with fellow sisters in Christ who are grieving or suffering a bitter loss. There are plenty of difficult things in the days following, but one in particular often creeps up as an unwelcomed guest:

When you are hurting, it can be hard to go back to church.

But something happened when I did return to church the week after we lost our baby. The Lord comforted me through His people like a balm on a wound (2 Cor. 1:3).

There is something deeply biblical about this—something we have lost in our individualistic culture of isolation and self-care:

There is comfort in the local church, and there is healing in communal worship.

It’s been a summer in the Psalms for me, when I have realized that David’s most personal, painful moments of heartache were written to be sung by all the saints. His personal story of suffering and salvation was turned into communal praise.

We see this is Psalm 40:

“I waited patiently for the LORD;
He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog” (Ps. 40:1-2a).

David is speaking here in personal terms, using words like “I” and “me.” He’s telling his own story.

But that biography quickly turns into public testimony in verse 3:

“He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the LORD”
(Ps. 40:3, emphasis added).

David’s experience of God’s deliverance didn’t end with himself, but was spread and sung among his fellow saints, so that his story became a monument to the lovingkindness of God.

Since my miscarriage, I’ve thought often of Hannah, who prayed fervently that God would give her a baby—who wept so bitterly she seemed to be out of her mind. But then she did something that may seem very ordinary and insignificant:

She went to church.

“Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord; then they went back to their house at Ramah” (1 Sam. 1:18-19).

In her grief, Hannah joined God’s people to worship the King of heaven. In this, she found a solace wider and deeper than a whole ocean of worldly comforts.

Dear suffering saint, it may seem easier to withdraw into the cave of your personal suffering. Instead, bring your cares to church with you. Cast them upon Christ, and let His people shoulder the load. You are among saints who have suffered just like you and who are waiting to tell the story of how God drew them up from the miry bog and put a new song in their mouth—a song of praise to our God.

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“O LORD, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells.”
~ Psalm 26:8

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