Dear Black Woman, You Are Not Alone in Your GriefSample

God Understands

All my life I had to fight. Oprah Winfrey coined these infamous lines in the film The Color Purple. As Black women, it is easy for us to feel like everything that we do is a fight.

As Black women, we fight against European beauty standards. We fight for our relationships, our well-being, our loved ones, our friendships, our sanity, and simply for ourselves. We fight. Then we fight some more. And as Black women, we are tired. It makes us grateful that this world is not our home, and that this isn’t all there is.

Yet, viewing life through the lens of eternity is challenging when so much hardship stares us in the face. For us as Black women, we could say that suffering comes with the territory. It is easy to feel as if no one understands. But I want to encourage you in this, there is someone who understands, and his name is Jesus. He is our suffering Savior.

Isaiah wrote that Jesus was “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (Isaiah 53:3). God understands our pain, dear Black woman. And not only does he understand, but he gives us hope in our pain.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:21-23).

Dear Black Woman, when you feel all hope is lost, remember that Jesus is our hope. And in and through him all things are possible. The apostle Paul wrote, “We have this hope as an anchor for our soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19). May we hold fast to Jesus, our hope.

Was this Plan helpful? We adapted this Plan from Black Woman Grief: A Guide to Hope and Wholeness by Natasha Smith. For more information, visit: https://www.ivpress.com/black-woman-grief