lenten journey, day 23 — a prayer for the grieving

In the past week or two, I have been an observer of grief. Not that I wanted to be. The act of grieving seems so intense, and so private, that when you look at it—observe it—from a place outside of the grief itself, you almost feel like a voyeur.

Last Thursday, I watched as a sweet teenage boy choked back tears while paying tribute to his mom, who had passed away from brain cancer. Nearby, his two very young brothers sobbed onto their dad’s shoulders, probably not fully grasping why their mom was not there to dry their tears…but somehow sensing that there was something very, very final about the words being spoken in her honor.

Later, on the news, I heard about a formerly on-top-of-the-world musician who had taken his own life and left a note that read, simply: “J'ai une ame solitaire. I am a lonely soul.” Was the heart-shattering grief of his friends and family amplified by guilt and self-blame when they read those words?

Then there was the email I received requesting prayer for a young mom whose husband collapsed suddenly. An aneurysm had claimed his life. Did this new widow and her newly fatherless 3-year-old daughter cling tightly to each other as their tears formed an ocean of grief around them? Days later, are they still clinging and rocking and crying and sinking in the indescribable depths of their loss?

Somewhere at this very moment, a baby is dying in her grief-stricken mommy’s arms. And somewhere a strong young man lies lifeless on a dirty, blood-stained street—the sorrow felt by his family a bitter footnote in the history of man’s inhumanity to man. And somewhere, maybe in my very own neighborhood, bad news…heartbreaking news…grief…has come to call at a home where laughter and happiness once lived.

Is God, like me, a mere observer of grief? Or is he more actively involved? Is he right there in the midst of all that pain, catching every tear in the palm of his hand, perhaps even crying right along with us?

I believe with everything in me that where grief dwells, God dwells. And here’s why:

“He pulled away from them about a stone's throw, knelt down, and prayed, ‘Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?’ At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.” — Luke 22:41-44 (from The Message)

This is the account of a completely grief-stricken Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion. He knew that unbearable pain was coming. He knew that soon he would feel the complete, heart-rending, grief-fueled desolation of separation from the Father. “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?…My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The thought of Father and Son, who had known no separateness, being wrenched apart on the cross makes we want to weep in misery and in gratitude.

Our God is not naïve of our sufferings. When he became one of us, he experienced the full spectrum of human emotion. Even grief and loss. How incredible that he desired and chose that pain.

Jesus, what can I say but “thank you”? Thank you for stepping down into this messy world and living among our brokenness. Thank you for choosing pain. Thank you for choosing loss. Thank you for choosing me. It is so very comforting to know that there is no place we can journey in this world where you have not already been. Lord, would you wrap your love around the heartbroken like a blanket tonight? Would you make me an instrument of your peace when those around me grieve? Would you give me a heart that truly weeps with those who weep and rejoices with those who rejoice? I can’t do it on my own, but you can do it through me. Be Christ in me. Yes, and amen.

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” — Isaiah 53:3

“He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.’” — Matthew 26:37-38