Those Who Mourn
Grief.
That word often conjures a picture of a woman in tears over the dead body of a loved one…
or the hollow-eyed, soot-stained face of a child bereft and alone in a bombed-out house.
God promises to bless with comfort those who mourn.
Jesus’ words on the mountain where He sat to teach have often been interpreted as spiritual truth: those who mourn over sin will receive comfort because of His sacrifice, but the words seem deliberately vague.
It is just, “Blessed are those who mourn…”, so we are left to fill in the blank according to our own understanding. We all experience big griefs eventually, but for me, it is the little losses that plague me like mosquitoes in a swamp. I tend to underestimate the accumulated blood loss! But my heart suffers from emotional anemia regardless.
Everyone expects emotional shock from cannon ball- sized wounds, and the first-aid of hugs and sympathy cards comes to the rescue, but caring for the paper-cuts gets dismissed as less-than, and the pain from them is neither treated nor comforted. “Oh, it’s just “X,” get over it.”
Jesus does not rank our sadness. He says, “those who mourn.”
It is I who sort my wounds and losses into how worthy I consider them of attention, like triage in a M*A*S*H unit: surgery required now; this can wait a minute; stitch ’em up and send ’em back out into the battle.
I am big on comforting others in their losses. I will be there with hugs and prayers to comfort you for the kinds of things I dismiss for myself…
But after a while, the pile of undealt-with losses and wounds builds up and threatens to overwhelm me. I get snippy and irritable; everything is too much; I speak before I consider whether there is love-truth in my words. Everything gets filtered through a veil of anger. And all the other emotions are dampened, smoldering under the wet blanket of denial.
This is depression…at least, my version.
I notice Jesus doesn’t say “Blessed are the depressed…for they have swept their griefs under the rug.”
I must acknowledge my losses in order to receive His comfort. Walking with Him in the light of honest self-exposure is required for fellowship with Him and with others. Jesus mourned. He wept. I must recognize my losses as such, and seek Him for the comfort promised those who mourn. And so I begin and continue…
Following Jesus every day in the everyday,
Christi
P.S. I have begun to trot these things out into the light, and I have an appointment with a trusted advisor.
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