Grief will have its say. It will not be shushed. Not beneath piles of toxic positivity. Not through peals of motivational speeches. It recognizes the weight of what was lost.
Or rather, it is an inability to find comfort. Because the tragedy that has unfolded reaps a harvest of death that cannot be replaced.
But even so, it is temporary and will be scarred over, the chasm often running deep.
We look in the stories of our spiritual forebears and see the horrors unfold that come by many causes: persecution, war, natural phenomena, or as the results of sinful choices.
And in these tomes, we see men made of flesh and bone who were likewise as passionate as we. There are no superhuman heroes which were comprised of a different mettle than those of us today sitting in pews.
All pain is situational, our response rooted in circumstances that accompany the loss. Faith is an aspect but so is the community that acts as a buffer. Its absence is surely to face life without a shield for the cold.
Generational oppression and knowing there is little help from an administration that is surely against you can add to the load you bear.
Rejection is a wound that is further agitated by new stresses, as you are left with resources continually dwindling and few if any who will help you resupply.
Displacement, diaspora, and dispossession are trauma painfully recounted in the holy scriptures and are lasting events that shape cultures for millennia afterward. If your people were transported by force from one land to another and identified as refugees, depending on the kindness of others, a kind of lasting homelessness can become etched into the cultural framework long after you have recovered tangibly.
It is often discounted today in the modern church that various races and ethnicities have profound wounding from the presence of racism and the withholding of opportunities for advancement.
A try-hard mentality pervades which subtly places the blame for any failure to reach the pinnacle of American dream ambition on the person who is at every possible disadvantage.
And so, it is impossible to separate the place, time, and circumstances from the person involved in the grieving.
It is also necessary to consider the hope going forward. As this prospect dwindles, the sense of sorrow may increase. And sometimes this is due to blockages. There are things we simply cannot see. We need God to clear the scales from the eyes.
This is different from the failure to acknowledge others’ real and legitimate suffering. But — we can do both. It is possible and necessary to weep with those who weep, validating their profound well of emotions, and to also uncover whether there exists an oasis in the desert.
Tears come from the dual perspective of what happened in the past and what we calculate to occur in the future.
The past is comprised of what has historically befallen us, compound fractures sustained due to where the system failed us, and is also made up of the new cause for upset. The future is decided by the people who are on our side or against us, how much time, money, energy, or resolve we have left and by what we are tasked with rebuilding.
Therefore, the complete picture is one of abject misery, depending on what transpired.
It needs to be considered what was represented by what was taken. Was this a child? Are years of parenting and happy memories suddenly ripped away? Are you unable to see a son or daughter grow up, thus seeing pleasant hopes dashed in an instant?
A church that can steel itself against the cries of the hurting is a people that can look the other away when abuses occur. It also denotes guilt which is baked in.
God is not one to quench a smoking flax or to break a bruised reed. These are people who are in weakened state due to various conditions of life. It may be old age or having been exploited or betrayed or subjected to some continuous hurt.
The reed which is bruised is still, nonetheless, wheat, and He gathers into His barn of His harvest. It is still good and is still separate from the chaff which is useless.
Jesus, Himself, was bruised by the actions of Satan but would still ascend to heaven a risen Savior. Many were harmed by the religious leaders of the day, then and now, and have become crushed by the incredible baggage they would lay on our shoulders.
Yet — He tells us his yoke is easy and His burden is light. Quite the contrast. The preponderance of evidence tells us Jesus is more concerned with what a thing is on the interior than the condition in which He finds it, a comforting thought indeed.
A diamond in the rough is infinitely more valuable than a zirconia polished to sparkling perfection.
And God is in the business of redemption.
The Transfiguration by Raphael (1520)
The words of the old patriarch, Jacob, can be heard in full, wrenching detail when he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.”
Before this, it was written, “All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted.”
And then, afterward, “so his father wept for him”.
This was the first son of the wife he loved, Rachel, and she had passed away while giving birth to their second, Benjamin.
There was no replacement for Joseph and for what he meant to him and represented. He was the fulfilment of a dream for which Rachel prayed for years: to have a child of her own.
Jacob had been tricked into marrying Leah, and she had borne him many children. Rachel had none.
There was no fixing this situation.