I
want to talk with you about three profound griefs in my life. First was the death of my maternal
grandfather. Granddad loved me with fierce
intensity. As long as Granddad was
there, I knew there was strength I could lean on. Losing him meant that suddenly life was less
safe, and it made me feel vulnerable.
Then there was the loss of my marriage. When she said, “I don’t think I can be
married to you anymore,” my heart felt like it was ripped out of my chest and
torn to a thousand pieces. It left me
feeling unloved and unlovable, like I would be deserted and pitiful until the
day I died alone.
Another
major grief was the adulthood of my children.
This came as a surprise, because nobody told me it would hurt this
much. I didn’t walk my daughters down
the aisle, because I performed the wedding ceremonies. Each time I feared I would be unable to make
it through the service, so choked was I by tears. No matter what people said, I felt like I
wasn’t gaining sons—I was losing daughters!
Since three of my children have reached adulthood, I’ve watched them
struggle in ways that I cannot help. It
makes me feel impotent and weak, to be unable to scoop them up and kiss them
better like I used to.
Each
of these three different kinds of grief has affected me tremendously, and in
ways I never could have predicted. What
griefs have you been through in your life?
How has mourning surprised you? How have you found strength?
In the Beatitudes
(Matthew 5:3-12[i]),
Jesus said, “God blesses those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.” This
might sound like so many platitudes that people say to folks who are
hurting—usually trying to comfort themselves instead of their hurting friend or
relative. But when it comes to
suffering, Jesus was anything but trite.
The Bible says, “He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows,
acquainted with deepest grief (Isaiah 53:3).”
In his early life, Jesus
knew the trauma of living as a refugee, and then the bigotry of people who
accused him of being illegitimate. In
his youth, he must have felt (as many teens do) that nobody understood
him. As an adult, he made enemies for
his teaching and life of grace—enemies so powerful that they had Jesus publicly
tortured and executed, to the tune of the jeering crowd. Yes, God through Jesus knows a lot about
suffering and grief. Trust me—whatever
your grief is, God has experienced it too, and suffers with you. You are not alone.
Sometimes that’s enough,
to know that God suffers too, and that God is with you. But other times you just need to know you’ll
get through it. Today, I can look back
on my darkest hours and see from the position of hindsight how God got me
through it. But when I was in the
depths, I needed faith to see in the dark.
Hebrews 1:1 says, “Faith shows the
reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.” Then the rest of the chapter then details
the struggles of people who went through immense grief, yet were blessed by
faith.
Abel, the first martyr,
died for his faith at the hands of his own brother. While Noah and his family barely escaped the
flood, it’s not a happy story—they watched the whole earth die. Abraham and Sarah lost a family and a home,
in order to pursue God’s calling. Abraham
faced the prospect of offering his son on the altar, and Isaac, though grieving
his own life, willingly laid himself down.
Joseph knew the suffering of the pit and the prison. Moses was abandoned as a child, became a
murderer, and had to flee from his home.
Called to lonely leadership, he had few friends for the rest of his
life, and died without seeing God’s promise come to fruition. Some of the Hebrew heroes emerged
victorious. Verses 33-35 say:
“By
faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what
God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of
fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to
strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight. Women received their loved ones back again
from death.”
Yet, others did not come
through their trials so well. Verses
35-37 say:
But
others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They
placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. Some were jeered at,
and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. Some
died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the
sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and
oppressed and mistreated.
Hebrews goes on to say
that all of these people endured hardship, without seeing the full benefit of
their suffering. Yet faith was what
helped them to continue, even though they were in the dark. Faith was grasping onto the truth that even
in their grief, there was something that their eyes could not see. Faith understands that God “does not enjoy hurting people or causing
them sorrow (Lamentations 3:33).” It
knows that there’s something better to hold onto.
When Granddad died, I had
no idea that losing him would make me aspire to be more like him. When my marriage ended, I had no idea that I
would find hope and love on the other side.
When my children grew up, I couldn’t imagine the joy that I now know
from watching them grow as independent adults, and the pleasure of being a
grandparent. In each of these
situations, God was doing something, even though in my pain, I couldn’t see it.
Faith means seeing with a blindfold
on—trusting God in the dark. In the
first message in this series, I said that we can change our world by changing
the way we see it. This is certainly
true when we see with the eyes of faith.
When Jesus said, “God blesses
those who mourn, for they will be comforted,” It was a promise that through
faith, we would see the world in a different light—even when we’re in the dark.
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