Allowing grief in the gospel
The only way Jesus is able to help us through our pain is by feeling our pain. Are we not asked to do the same?
I don’t know who needs to hear this but
Grief is at the center of Jesus Christ’s Atonement.
The only way He was able to overcome our pain was by feeling through our pain.
Jesus felt every cry in the shower and panic attack in bed.
He felt every knife to the back, punch to the gut, and every phone call you didn’t want or expect.
He suffered and sat through every single one of those things for every single person who has ever lived and will live.
How insane is that.
We are so grateful.
What an incredible gift that has saved us a million times over.
The absolute epitome of love that we will spend our lives trying to understand.
But if Jesus grieved this deeply, what does that mean for those of us who are trying to be like Him?
It means we sit with our grief and we feel it.
It means we sit with the grief others and feel it.
It means we suffer with them.
We provide a space for people to sit and feel.
The reality is, Jesus could have never experienced the Resurrection, He could have never been victorious over death, He could have never redeemed us, He could have never overcame all, if He didn’t first EXPERIENCE all.
Too often in society, in the Church, we try to bypass pain, we try to positive think our way out of grief.
How would Jesus know how to help or comfort any of us if He did that? If He just skipped the suffering to the victory?
Our work as His disciples is this:
To mourn with those that mourn. To comfort those that stand in need of comfort.
We can’t skip over it.
We have to suffer.
We have to grieve.
And in the grief & suffering we find glory, but most importantly,
Love.