Walking Through Mourning

by Danette Reeves

No one can escape mourning. It is inevitable because we live in this sin-cursed, death-ridden world. Each person will mourn something: the loss of parents, siblings, children, or a spouse; the loss of jobs, health, wealth, and dreams; and the loss of friendships, abilities, capabilities, and possibly even our minds. Mourning is an authentic process.

Ignoring pain does not bring healing; it just buries it like a speck of infection in a wound that cannot heal. One can pretend, stay busy, bury it in food, and minister to others and yet never heal from mourning. It just becomes a spreading poison that rears its ugly, infected head into every corner of one’s life—every relationship, every thought, every ministry.

Jesus never denied His grief. He openly wept at the death of His dear friend, Lazarus. Even though Jesus knew He would resurrect Lazarus, He first mourned the loss. Jesus mourned the rejection of His people (Luke 19:41- 44). He knew Israel would suffer greatly because they had rejected Him, and He wept. Jesus withdrew from people when John the Baptist was beheaded (Matthew 14:18). Jesus knew the pain of betrayal and rejection intimately when He said in Luke 22:21, “But listen, the hand of the one betraying Me is with mine on the table.” He hurt when His disciples could not stay awake to pray with Him (Matthew 26:40). Jesus surely felt deep mourning when the rooster crowed as He looked into Peter’s eyes when Peter (the one who claimed he would follow to the end) denied Him three times (Luke 22:61). Think about the grief Jesus must have felt when He looked down from the cross and saw His mother so distraught. Can you hear the gentleness and deep mourning as He gives His sonship to John: “Dear woman, look, here is your son” (John 19:26)? Even in the very worst of pain, Jesus turned to God, His Father, and asked for a different cup and then later asked from the cross, “Why have You forsaken Me?” Each journey of mourning is personal. In searching Scripture to see how Jesus mourned, the key is found in the picture of Jesus being in the midst of the horrible loneliness and pain, never denying His grief, yet turning to God in honesty and yielding to His Father. Our healing comes from walking through the mourning with the Great Physician—the One who is the Lover of my soul: The One who loves perfectly and completely.

May we find comfort in Revelation 21:3-5: “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”

About The Author Danette Reeves teaches a Ladies’ Discipleship Class and is the Ladies Fellowship Director at First Baptist Church, Calhoun, Tennessee, as well as being active in the church music ministries. She lives in Cleveland, Tennessee, with her husband, Charlie, and is a mom to three grown children and Oma to four grandchildren.

2520 KEITH STREET CLEVELAND, TN 37312 423.339.6726