Breaking The Cycle Of Grief | Cornerstone Church | Pastor Chris Hilken

The big idea

When your marriage or your life falls apart, God does not wait for you to have it together—He meets you in disillusionment and grief and invites you back onto the potter's wheel for a new plan.

God did not design us for death or for broken covenant, which is why loss and betrayal overwhelm us so deeply. But Scripture is full of broken, honest people, not just heroes, and Jesus calls the weak and heavy-burdened to Himself, not the put-together. Healing comes not from coping mechanisms or endless cycles of blame and bitterness, but from stopping the spiral, dropping the coping mechanisms, and rolling into a renewed, whole-life surrender to Jesus.

Point 1 of 6

Pastor Chris retells C. S. Lewis's picture of a dog, a bird, and a fish each finding 'heaven' in the field, the air, and the water suited to them, then asks where humanity's equivalent home is. Lewis concluded that our unmet desires and universal sense that 'something's broken' point to the fact that we were made for somewhere else, which became part of his path to faith.

Point 2 of 6

Pastor Chris explains that because we were created in Eden for eternal life and lasting covenant, our hardwiring has no category for death or covenant-breaking. He shares his own experience getting the call that his wife Paige had died, saying he simply did not have the tools to cope, and that this lack of tools is universal, not a personal failure.

Point 3 of 6

He describes the spiral of anger, bitterness, bad decisions, shame, and isolation that people fall into after betrayal or loss, using the picture of 'shower trials' where we mentally destroy someone but go silent and standoffish in person. He admits the world gives permission for this ('whatever you do next, we understand') but names it what it is: repeating the same behavior expecting different results.

Point 4 of 6

Pastor Chris notes that Sunday school pictures only color the victories—David and Goliath, Noah's ark—never the raw complaints of Job, Asaph, or the martyrs asking God how long He will wait. He points out Noah ended up drunk and naked and David became a murderer and adulterer, showing the Bible is 'a who's who of losers until Jesus shows up,' which means God has plenty to say to people in real disillusionment and grief.

Point 5 of 6

Using Jeremiah 18's image of the potter and the clay that jumps off the wheel and shatters, he says most people just stay on the ground because the world excuses it. He invites listeners to ask 'but is it working?' and to climb back onto the wheel in humility, trusting God as the redeeming potter even when plan A—whether broken by our own sin or by someone else's, or by death itself—is gone.

Point 6 of 6

Pastor Chris admits he has hopped off the wheel more times than he can count and jokes he's probably on 'plan L' of his own life, yet insists God's unchanging character means He will keep remaking the clay every time someone returns to Him in humility.

Take it into your week

Pastor Chris frames the response as stop, drop, and roll — the same simple instinct you'd use if you were literally on fire.