Consider the work of God; who can make straight what he has made crooked? -Ecclesiastes 7:13

Recently, I have found a tremendous amount of comfort in the book of Ecclesiastes. I have found thoroughly meaningful Qoheleth, the Gatherer, or “The Teacher,” and their insistence that everything is vanity. This word “vanity” or “emptiness” is something we all feel from time to time. I think it’s profoundly human to wonder if what we’re doing has (or if what we did had) any meaning at all. It’s profoundly human to wonder if there’s a point to anything. I led a Bible study on this book in 2025 and the group tried over and over again to shine some positivity into Ecclesiastes. We’re somewhat trained that way, aren’t we? Find the bright spot. Seek out the silver lining.

Sometimes, we just want permission to wallow.

Ecclesiastes gives us permission to wallow. It gives us permission to wonder at the purpose of all things, which I think is an important part of life. When we wonder about the purpose of something, we’re more likely to be able to see whether it’s meaningful or not. And if it’s not meaningful, if something (or someone) isn’t giving us life in some way, it’s encouraging to know that we can say that out loud. We can admit when something isn’t giving us life and then we can decide to do something different.

For me, this is the hope of Ecclesiastes, and most wisdom literature. It’s in the permission to name the current circumstance and to let ourselves live there for a bit. Let yourself feel. We have permission to feel. The hope is in the permission to name what we feel. We name what we feel, which is a freeing, cleansing thing. Then, when we’re ready, we can clear ourselves up to decide to do something different. It’s not looking for a silver lining around the cloud; it’s acknowledging the cloud and even welcoming the cloud as a part of our human experience.

“Consider the work of God,” the Teacher writes, “who can make straight what he has made crooked?” Something has to give the silver lining its shape. Do we even have a silver lining without the cloud to help it hold its shape? To remember that it isn’t our job to “fix” everything, that sometimes our call is simply to experience something, relieves us from the responsibility of trying to make everything perfect (and what is perfect, anyway?).

So, yes, you have permission to wallow. You have permission to grieve and be joyful and angry and ecstatic, and experience life as it comes with whatever emotions come up for you. Our ability to feel is what makes us human –humans that make up the world for which Jesus loved so much he would die and resurrect.