“Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!
"How the mighty have fallen" is one of those lines that's been quoted so often it's easy to forget where it came from: David, grieving, over the death of Saul — the very man who spent years trying to kill him.
That's what makes this lament so unexpected. David isn't celebrating the removal of a threat. He's mourning a real loss, complicated and mixed as it is, without pretending the relationship was simple. Grief, here, isn't reserved for people who were only good to you.
Maybe you've lost someone, or something, whose ending you have complicated feelings about — relief and sorrow tangled together, neither one canceling the other out. This verse doesn't ask you to sort that out neatly. It just gives you permission to say the mighty have fallen, and mean it, even when your history with them was anything but simple.
Is there a loss in your life you've never let yourself grieve because the relationship was too complicated?
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.