for those who weep

Sep 12, 2024

I was surrounded by chocolates. Or, to be honest, I was surrounded by a variety of wrappers and a few leftover chocolates that barely escaped with their lives. We pitched up and down the waves, rocking and weeping until the wee hours.

If you’ve been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you – you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.
-C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

That eerie calm settles on the heels of grief, and when the hits keep coming we look at the future and wonder if this is a pattern we need to just face with bleak resignation. My life as I knew it is long gone, and I don’t like the way this is heading.

I was reading the book of John and got to the part about Martha and Mary and the raising of Lazarus. And He caught me on that one little verse and kept me there: Jesus wept.

Why, though? He knew He was going to raise Lazarus in just a few minutes. If He knew it was going to be good, why did He give in to grief in the meantime?

I think it has to do with what Martha said to Him a little earlier: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And a few minutes later, Mary came and said the same thing.

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
– John 11:32

They knew it, and He knew it. And I knew it, too. It was this: You could have prevented this.

In every loss we experience, it’s true. We’re aching and heaving, and He could have prevented it. Sometimes He does, more than we realize. And sometimes He doesn’t. And He weeps and rocks with us...more than we realize.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled.
– John 11:33

Then He does something else that seems odd.

And He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”
– John 11:34

Where did they lay him? Why did He ask that? Didn’t Jesus, the God-man, already know? It was more than that, though. He wasn’t just asking where the dead man was.

He was saying, Show me where it hurts.

And that’s when He cried.

He weeps with Mary and Martha – and us – because He understands that sometimes we experience loss and pain for the sake of the expansion of the Kingdom. He knows we come under attack and we don’t know how to handle all the upheaval. He weeps with us because He knows we hurt and we often don’t understand why. He knows we rock in agony with no answers; He knows our ship swings between the violence and the lullaby.

In loss – whether it’s the death of a person, a pet, our plans, or something else entirely – we want certainty and explanation, but what we usually get first is refinement. We learn a little more about what it is to walk into the unknown, blank pages He sends us into. Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not talking about accepting a hindrance, sickness, or other harassment from the enemy. We must not fall for his trick of casting righteous-sounding blame on God for attacks that come from the pit of hell. Denying ourselves and following Him is a mission, not a malady. The calling out of our comfort zone is our cross.

Sometimes, because He causes all things for good for those who love Him, grief and loss launch us farther and faster into His assignment for us. He knows it’s hard and it grieves Him, too. But He also knows what’s coming.

Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
– John 11:40

We learn not to love our life so much – not because we’re ungrateful or bitter, but because we are unfettered and surrendered. We know this place isn’t permanent.

We’re not resigned. We’re reloading. And He’s not taking our life; He’s resurrecting it.

This is an excerpt from Risk the Ocean: An Adoptive Mom's Memoir of Sinking and Sanctification.