“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear” (C.S. Lewis). We naturally feel sorrow when we experience loss in our lives, though we may experience a sort of consternation, too, since the very ground beneath our feet may seem to fall away, us leaving us feeling alienated and terribly alone. Over time our grief can make us numb and disconnected. We draw inward, afraid that whatever we love will be taken from us… As someone once confided: “Each loss makes a little hole in you; after awhile, they all add up, and there’s just a gaping hole where your heart used to be.”
We must go through the desert before we can live the promise. Since experiencing loss is part of life in a fallen world, we must first acknowledge our troubles and sorrows. “Don’t call me Naomi (“my delight”) but Mara (“bitterness”), for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me (כִּי־הֵמַר שַׁדַּי לִי מְאֹד). I went out full, but the LORD hath brought me home empty” (Ruth 1:20-21). Once we give voice to our pain (and that might have to be done over and again) the heart can reopen to hope once again. We then can turn to God and learn to live in the moment, trusting him to help us through the troubles of the day (Matt. 6:34).
“Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper” (Henri Nouwen).
There is a spiritual principle that can help us through our grieving and brokenness. When we care for others who have the same distress we ourselves feel, God will bestow the comfort we give and impart it back to us as well: tefillati al-cheki tashuv (תְּפִלָּתִי עַל־חֵיקִי תָשׁוּב) – “may my prayer return upon my own breast” (Psalm 35:13). “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7). As we give of our heart in compassion to another, so we will receive compassion in our own brokenness. Indeed we often receive far more than we give when we comfort others in their afflictions and help bind up their wounds. Showing kindness to others who are hurting helps them bear their burdens and so fulfills the law of Messiah (Gal. 6:2). Our wounds fill us the sufferings of Messiah and reveal God’s heart of mercy: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulations so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor. 1:3-4).
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” (Henri Nouwen: Out of Solitude)
It may seem counterintuitive and even absurd to the everyday mind, but our losses help us discover what really matters in life, and that is a great blessing, a gift… “Blessed are they that mourn.” The bereavements of our lives, the small disappointments as well as the major heartaches, teach us to let go and yet keep love alive within us. Life is fleeting, fragile, and precious, and we come to know this in the poignancy and heartache of the moment. When we open our eyes each morning and recite modeh ani, “I confess before You,” we have opportunity to believe in God’s faithfulness (Lam. 3:22-24). “There are two great days in a person’s life – the day we are born and the day we discover why” (William Barclay).
Sometimes there are sorrows and inner wounds that never seem to heal, despite our prayers for mercy and consolation. Then it becomes a matter of faith, that despite our present darkness, healing will ultimately come to us, perhaps when we are in heaven. Faith finds courage to go on living in hope, despite all temporal loss, fear, and abandonment. The groan of your heart is sacred, expressing a wound that binds you to the Healer of your life. “Blessed are they that mourn – for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). We all must walk through the “valley of the shadow of death” to find hope on its other side, but it is only by passing that way can we know the Name of God as the “I-AM-with-you-always.”
“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve — even in pain — the authentic relationship.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Hebrew Lesson:
2 Cor. 1:3-4 Hebrew Reading:
