"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." (Matthew 5:4 NIV)
I read an article the other day that made this rather arresting assertion: everyone is grieving.
Everyone is in a time to mourn.
I agree.
Oh, friends: I am not in any way saying all or even most of life is grief. I am not saying we are all trudging about in a constant state of sorrow. After all, "this is the day the LORD has made. We will [I love the intentionality and determination of that word!] rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24 NLT). But if mourning is a way of honoring what we have loved and lost, and if losing is part of loving in this broken world, then it does seem we must all be mourning something or someone.
Here is the thing, and this is so, so important: our God of compassion does not ask us to rate our loss or heartbreak or sorrow and decide if it merits mourning. His tenderness and love are wide, deep, long, and high enough to have room for anything that causes us to grieve.
I also don't believe mourning happens in some nice tidy compartment of time. I think our mourning mostly has to happen right in the middle of normal life, even when normal life no longer exists.
So we mourn, and we laugh. We mourn, and we plant. We mourn, and we build. We mourn, and we heal.
I've had the costly privilege of learning about mourning from people who have done it well…which is just to say, they've done it at all. There is no right way to mourn, but God is clear that there is a time for it, and so it must be given its due.
From my hurting friends, I've learned that grief is not some sort of race to see who can cross the finish line first. As near as I can tell from watching them, "done" is not a point you get to when you're mourning the loss of someone or something you love.
From them, I have learned that grief is not a straight line but rather a squiggly knot with twists and turns and snarls and loose ends that you're trying to make sense of while you're in the middle of the middle of the middle.
From them, I have learned grief is a bumpy, uneven road that you hope eventually takes you to places where you can see you have made progress from where you began.
From them, I have learned that grief must just be done. It cannot be skipped over or avoided. It cannot be gone around but must be tunneled through.
From them, I have learned that joy and sadness, hope and despair, pleasure and pain, delight and misery can coexist and be real and true all at the same time.
To my grieving friends: thank you for being my teachers in a class you never wanted to take. Those you grieve so bravely, you honor so beautifully.
I've had the costly privilege of learning about mourning from people who have done it well…which is just to say, they've done it at all. There is no right way to mourn, but God is clear that there is a time for it, and so it must be given its due.
From my hurting friends, I've learned that grief is not some sort of race to see who can cross the finish line first. As near as I can tell from watching them, "done" is not a point you get to when you're mourning the loss of someone or something you love.
From them, I have learned that grief is not a straight line but rather a squiggly knot with twists and turns and snarls and loose ends that you're trying to make sense of while you're in the middle of the middle of the middle.
From them, I have learned grief is a bumpy, uneven road that you hope eventually takes you to places where you can see you have made progress from where you began.
From them, I have learned that grief must just be done. It cannot be skipped over or avoided. It cannot be gone around but must be tunneled through.
From them, I have learned that joy and sadness, hope and despair, pleasure and pain, delight and misery can coexist and be real and true all at the same time.
To my grieving friends: thank you for being my teachers in a class you never wanted to take. Those you grieve so bravely, you honor so beautifully.
And to all of us: when grief grips our minds and hearts, we can know that God is both there with us in that dark night and on up ahead of us, preparing a new day—for He is both the God of mourning and God of the morning.
"There is a strength that rises up in me,
To know that You've been here before me.
A strength beyond what I can see,
Jesus, Your love,
Jesus, Your love.
So let my heart tell You again,
When seasons change and stories end,
Your steady love,
It will sustain me through it all,
Jesus, Your love."
When seasons change and stories end,
Your steady love,
It will sustain me through it all,
Jesus, Your love."
(From "Jesus, Your Love;" Kristene DiMarco; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STlxdghSczI.)
#morningbymourning
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I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to tell me what you really think. Years ago, I explained to my then-two-year-old that my appointment with a counselor was "sort of like going to a doctor who will help me be a better mommy." Without blinking, she replied, "You'd better go every day." All of which is just to say I've spent some time in the school of brutal honesty!