weeping

Weeping Prayers

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This is not me currently, but I know a few people who are navigating the process of grieving a loved one. It’s never an easy process and even though I’ve been around a while, I still can’t say that grief is a natural process because death really isn’t natural. It’s a product of the fall brought about by sin and not in God’s original design.

I do believe that God hears weeping as a prayer as much as He will hear your words and desires of your heart. The Bible says that God collects our tears in a bottle. I know that someone in deep grief may not have anything more than tears to offer to God, and that is enough.

As a reminder, there is no time limit on grief, because grief is the price of love this side of heaven. It will never be right that the person isn’t here. It will never be right that you will never hear that familiar voice or see that face again until heaven.

I love the fact that Jesus, knowing He was about to call His friend Lazarus out of the grave, still wept over his death. He wept over the grief of his friends who had no inkling of the coming miracle. He wept to show that we can believe in heaven and the resurrection and still be sad at the same time.

So I’m saying that there’s no shame in grief. Sometimes tears can be the only prayers we have.

Worshipping Through Weeping

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“Weeping may last through the night,
    but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5, NLT).

Today as a deacon, I attended the celebration of life service for one of our members who tragically lost his life at age 42. He had been married only 16 months when his life was unexpectedly cut short.

The funeral was beautiful and God-honoring. My favorite part of the entire service was when the worship leader sang the first song, the widow of the deceased stood up alone and raised her hands in worship, grieving and praising at the same time.

That’s an image I will carry with me as long as I live, I think. She had her world utterly wrecked like a rug pulled out from underneath her and still was able to declare like Job, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21, ESV).

There is so much evil in the world and so much that makes no sense. If this life is all there is, then there is no hope, no future, and no reason to keep going. But if we have the promise of God for something better coming (and we do), then we know that this is what the Apostle Paul calls a light and momentary affliction compared to the joy that’s coming.

Not that grief is nothing. Not that the pain isn’t real. But the coming joy will overwhelm us and seem so much greater than any sorrow that went before, like a woman holding her newborn baby after the agony of giving birth only is thinking of new life and not pain.

My brain has no compartment for comprehending the level of suffering this woman is currently undergoing and how radically different her life will be from now on. There will always be a void where her husband should be and a dull ache that never completely goes away, but there will always be a Father’s love that grows deeper and sweeter with the passing of time.

“Yea, though walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” The psalm does not pretend that evil and death do not exist. Terrible things happen, and they happen to good people as well as to bad people. Even the paths of righteousness lead through the valley of the shadow. Death lies ahead for all of us, saints and sinners alike, and for all the ones we love. The psalmist doesn’t try to explain evil. He doesn’t try to minimize evil. He simply says he will not fear evil. For all the power that evil has, it doesn’t have the power to make him afraid” Frederick Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry).

Palm Sunday

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image

“Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (from The Book of Common Prayer).

We celebrate Palm Sunday today.

On this day, Jesus rode into Jerusalem a hero. The crowds greeted Him with palm branches and shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

I doubt anyone could have guessed at that point that a week later those very same people would be shouting again, but this time for Him to be crucified as a common criminal.

Jesus knew. He alone knew what was really in their hearts. He wept over Jerusalem, the city who had the very Messiah they had so longed for in their very midst, but refused to recognize Him. The very ones who murdered the prophets sent by God Himself.

Jesus knew that not too long after that, Jerusalem would hardly be recognizable. In fact, it would be a ruin. The Romans, true to the prophecy, would not leave one stone standing on top of another.

I wonder when was the last time I wept for Nashville? Or my neighbors. Or the people around me who don’t know this Jesus, who don’t know that there’s a hope of a better life and a better future awaiting them?

Lord, break my heart for what breaks Yours. And then spur me to do something about it.

Things I Love 13: Not Written on a Friday Nor on the 13th

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island hammock

I normally make some witty and socially relevant comment right about now, but we’re skipping that to get to the list. I do want to get to 1,000 before I’m 80. So we’re starting this one at #293.

293) The moment when gratitude wins out over self-pity, hurt, and anger.

294) Knowing I can never go back to the way things used to be but that the future will be so much better.

295) Iced Tazo Tea Lemonade and sympathetic baristas.

296) Condemning words and harsh unforgiving texts no longer will define who I am or wreck my life.

297) The idea that one day one girl out there will not only want to go out with me on a date, but will actually want to spend the rest of her life with me as my wife.

298) Christmasy candles that fill the air with apple and pumpkin spice aromas.

299) I’ve gotten so used to typing instead of writing that I automatically expect to see that red little line under a word when I’ve misspelled it.

300) The word phonetics isn’t spelled phonetically (otherwise it would be spelled starting with an f).

301) Alanis Morissette’s song Ironic contains no actual ironies– now, isn’t that ironic? Don’t you think?

302) Lost hopes restored and broken dreams reborn.

303) Candy Crush Saga– and yes, I can quit at any time.

304) Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

305) My sister, who is much prettier than Joan Jett.

306) Fruit Ninja.

307) Hearing Emmylou Harris sing just about ANYTHING.

308) Someone will read these lists and be inspired to start one of their own.

309) The beauty of seeing a classic film in the high definition format of blu ray and noticing details and textures that even the original movie audiences would have missed.

310) I’m a guy who has Breakfast at Tiffany’s in his top five movie list and am comfortable with that.

311) Still knowing all the words to the Don McLean song American Pie.

312) Knowing just about all the lines from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.

313) Any movie starring both Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra.

314) A perfect God using imperfect people to accomplish his purposes in the world.

315) God using nobodies to shame the who’s who and turn the world right-side up again.

316) Even the worst commercials are only 30 seconds long (or on rare occasion, 1 minute).

317) Chillin’ like a villain.

318) Being like Phoebe Buffay from the TV show friends (in personality, not looks, in case you were confused).

319) Cereal at midnight.

320) One day God will wipe every tear from every  eye and everything wrong will be made right again.

321) Being me.

More for Those With Broken Hearts

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I have something I’ve learned about having my heart broken a few times that I want to pass along to you. First of all, I want to say that okay to grieve when your love or interest in someone goes unrequited. It’s okay to hurt. I think it requires as much of a grieving process as losing a loved one, because you’re seeing the death of a dream that was very dear to your heart.

I think it’s okay to be brutally open and honest with God about the pain. He can take it. Besides, he already knows those feelings that you pretend aren’t there when you tell yourself that you’re fine.

That said, I think one good thing out of having your heart broken is that it is never again the same shape as it was, pre-break. It’s larger. And if you choose the path of healing versus the path of grudges and bitterness, good things can come out of the pain, such as these:

You have more room to love others and you have an increased sensitivity to those in pain around you who need your love.

You give more grace toward those who act out of their own hurt toward you because you remember when you did the same out of the great pain you were once in.

You have more compassion and tenderness in general because you know what it’s like to need it and find it so you want others to experience the same joy you did.

Finally, you become a little more like Jesus because you’ve shared in his sufferings. Jesus above all knows the pain of a broken heart, both physically and metaphorically. He’s the one who wept over Jerusalem because they wouldn’t come to him and find life and freedom. His heart was just as broken that day as when the spear pierced his side into his heart.

So remember that there is nothing broken that God can’t take and make beautiful. No, not just beautiful like it was before. It won’t ever be the same. It will be much, much better.

 

 

 

Blessed are the mourners

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“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).

It seems like we as a society don’t really do well with mourning. We would rather be entertained and amused. Sadness and grief are things that we move past as quickly as possible, and those that don’t are looked upon unfavorably, like “Why can’t they just get over it?”

The Message puts it this way: “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”

How are we to mourn and what are we to mourn for?

I think we mourn not as those who have no hope, but as those who do. Our sadness is a sadness that is based in the hope of a better day yet to come. Our grief is a grief that has joy at its core– joy that whatever we’ve lost will be restored to us a thousand-fold. We mourn knowing that one day we will rejoice and sing– and laugh– over the momentary afflictions that have been far outweighed by an eternal hope of glory.

What do we mourn for? We mourn over the loss of loved ones, because death is certain for every single one of us. We mourn over the wasted lives around us. We mourn over so many hopes we had that were unfulfilled and dreams we had that were dashed against the rocks of reality. We mourn over sin in the world, and what how it mars and wrecks and leaves a ruin in so many lives. We weep for what God in Jesus wept for– that so many will live and die and pass into eternity separated from Him and never knowing what real hope, faith and love look like. They will never know that God had a better, more abundant life in store for them if they would only say yes to Him.

It’s good to mourn for these things, but also to rejoice that all these things will one day end. Jesus has already overcome all the things that cause sadness and grief.

I would like to close this with words from Rich Mullins that may not quite fit, but I loved them so much that I had to add them here:

“It is the living who mourn at a funeral– not the dead. We mourn because the lives of the dead who made our own more lively, and since we are (or had been) so knit together, the loss of another’s strand will eventually cause our own unravelling. Fellowship is the mingling of threads that make up a fabric, and only in a fabric do we have some kind of meaningfulness.”

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.