We Lament What Has Not Yet Been Restored

One of the things I love most about Scripture is that it never asks us to hide our grief. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible tells the truth about living in a world that has been fractured by sin and death. It gives us permission to weep, to ask hard questions, and to long for the day when everything broken will finally be made whole. The Bible never treats our tears as an inconvenience to overcome or a weakness to hide. Instead, it continually reminds us that God sees, hears, and draws near to those whose hearts are broken.

That is why I have always loved the picture of Rachel in Jeremiah 31.

Thus says the Lord:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.”

Thus says the Lord:

“Keep your voice from weeping,
and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for your work,
declares the Lord,
and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.
There is hope for your future,
declares the Lord,
and your children shall come back to their own country.
–Jeremiah 31:15-17

Rachel herself had died centuries before these events took place, but Jeremiah paints her as the grieving mother of Israel, lamenting over the sons and daughters who had been carried away into exile. It is a picture of profound sorrow, of longing for what has been lost, and of a heart that knows things are not the way they are supposed to be.

As I have reflected on this passage over the years, I have realized that what Rachel expresses is something every Hope Mom understands. We know what it feels like to lament places of loss that have not yet been brought to restoration. We know what it is to carry birthdays that should have looked different, empty arms that still ache to hold our babies, and hearts that continue longing for someone who is absent from us but safely present with Christ. We know what it is to live every day looking toward the return of Jesus, longing for the resurrection and the day when every broken thing will finally be made whole.

Perhaps that is one of the truest descriptions of the Christian life. We live in the tension between what Christ has already accomplished and what He has not yet brought to completion. Jesus conquered sin and death through His death and resurrection. The decisive victory has already been won, even though we are still waiting for the day when its fullness will be seen. Until then, we still attend funerals, stand beside tiny graves, miss our babies with every part of our hearts, and wake up each morning in a world where death remains an enemy, even though we know it is a defeated one.

The apostle Paul describes this tension beautifully in Romans.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
–Romans 8:22-25

I love that Paul doesn’t tell us to stop groaning. Instead, he tells us why we groan. We groan because we know this world is not our home, death was never part of God’s good creation, and we have seen enough of Christ to know that something infinitely better is coming.

As Hope Moms, we know this groaning intimately. It lives in the ache we still feel when we see a baby the same age ours would have been, when we hear another mother calling out the very name we gave to our own baby as she calls to hers across the playground, when another birthday arrives, when Mother’s Day feels complicated, or when we catch ourselves wondering what our child’s laugh might have sounded like. We are not only mourning what has been lost. We are longing for the restoration God has promised. Our grief is one expression of that longing.

Rachel’s tears were never the end of the story, and neither are ours. God answered Rachel’s lament, not by denying her grief, but by reminding her that exile would not have the final word. Later in that same chapter, He promised a New Covenant that would ultimately be fulfilled through Jesus Christ.

Then, centuries later, Matthew echoes Rachel’s lament as the mothers of Bethlehem mourn the children Herod had murdered. Even in the midst of that heartbreaking tragedy, the very Child Herod sought to destroy had come into the world to defeat sin and death forever. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus would accomplish the restoration Rachel longed for, and every grieving mother still longs for today. That is the hope we cling to.

We do not need to pretend our grief isn’t there or deny the empty places death has left behind. We can lament honestly because our babies are truly missing from us, but we can also hope confidently because Christ is making all things new. Our tears and our hope are not enemies. They belong together. We cry because death is real and we hope because Jesus is alive.

Friend, if your heart feels heavy today because you are grieving what has not yet been restored, please don’t assume you are grieving wrongly. In many ways, your longing is exactly what Scripture teaches us to expect. You are living in the same tension every believer experiences between Christ’s first coming and His return. You are longing for the day when faith becomes sight, when death is swallowed up forever, and when every promise of God reaches its glorious fulfillment.

Until that day, we will continue to do what grieving mothers who belong to Christ have done throughout the centuries. We will weep, and we will wait, and we will hope. We will keep singing ourselves forward toward the day when the trumpet will sound, Christ will return, the dead in Christ will be raised, and every place of loss that has not yet been restored will finally, completely, and forever be made whole.

The reason we can wait with hope is not simply because restoration is coming. It is because the One who promised restoration has already proven Himself faithful at the empty tomb. The risen Christ is our confidence that death will never have the final word. Because He lives, our babies who died in Him live also. Because He lives, we know that every promise of God will one day be fulfilled. And because He lives, we can lament today without ever surrendering our hope for tomorrow.

If you’d like to continue reflecting on Jeremiah 31, I’d encourage you to spend a few quiet moments listening to Song for Rachel by Sandra McCracken. It has been a gift to me over the years, and my prayer is that it will minister to your heart as well.

Jennie is the Executive Director for Hope Mommies. She and her husband Brian live in Oregon and have four children together— Trenton, Paige who has been in Heaven with Jesus since 2010, Mason, and Cora. If you were to knock on her front door today, you’d find her in something comfortable drinking a hot cup of tea, while trying to figure out how to balance all the things that make up a life. She enjoys spending time in God’s word, fresh flowers, board games with her kids, cooking, and evening walks in her neighborhood. She adores being a new creation in Christ and prays she reflects Him well on this earth.