Worship in a Time of Trauma: New Releases Offer Songs for Healing
Christian artists open up about mental health, abuse, and loss.
Working in a level-four neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for over 12 years, Grace Assad has cared for newborns with heart defects, rare genetic disorders, and risky surgery recoveries. Navigating infant loss is part of her job.
She’s also a songwriter and musician, making music with her husband Peter under the name “poems of grace.” Their latest single, “Held,” came as a cathartic expression of grief and heartbreak after sitting with a family through a traumatic loss. Assad wanted the song to be a gift to hurting parents and her NICU coworkers.
The cutting lyrics don’t obscure the aching reality of loss:
Darkness shrouds where light began
Unwelcome guest breaking in
Quiet crib, weeping room
Beating breast, needless food
Assad’s new release is part of a recent outpouring of Christian music that explicitly addresses contemporary suffering.
While songs of lament have always been a part of Christian worship, this cohort of Christian artists are singing about issues that can carry stigma in church settings, including trauma, abuse, and mental health. Their raw, confessional lyrics invite believers to name their struggles and speak about them honestly with God and their communities.
Like many who face grief and pain, Assad said she feels tempted to put up emotional barriers to cope with the loss she sees in the NICU. But remaining sensitive and open is important to her—and part of why she put her experiences into her music.
“I want to be strong, but I want to stay soft,” said Assad. “Human beings can endure a lot, sometimes at the expense of the walls we build up.”
Artists like Assad are hoping that by choosing honesty and vulnerability, listeners and worshipers ...