“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”
Romans 12:15
For the most part, it’s easy for me to rejoice when others
rejoice. If I find myself being jealous,
I ask God to remove it and replace it with genuine happiness or I find
something I can genuinely compliment the person on to extinguish the jealous
feeling I have. However, mourning with
those that are mourning does not come naturally to me and I would venture to
say that it does not come naturally for others either.
Yes, many of us can feel sad for someone who is going
through a hard time, but that is different than mourning. When a person is experiencing tragedy, often,
we want to fix it. We don’t want to
enter into their pain with them. It’s
too uncomfortable. We want to wipe away
their tears, offer a quick solution, pat them on the bum, and send them on the
way. This is not bible love. Bible love is to mourn with those that
mourn. Reflect on that.
The word, “mourn,” is typically used to describe grieving
over death; to lament. This is mourning
over all types of death; death of a pet, spouse, child, miscarriage and even
abortion. We are called to come along
side the mourner and grieve with them;
not offer pat answers, not offer bible verses, but to grieve. It is not up to us to determine how long the
grieving process should take. We are
just to mourn as long as they mourn; to enter in, to feel the pain. Through this we become closer with our Lord
who was “a man acquainted with grief,” Isaiah 53:3.
Get uncomfortable.
Embrace the silence. Become
painfully beautiful and mourn.
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