C.S. Lewis writes of grief feeling like fear in A Grief Observed. I have found this to be a very accurate description and there is the temptation to avoid it if possible. What I am learning is that once one accepts it, on the other side is a sadness, but it is a softened and almost sweet sadness.
I was thinking tonight that it is not just sorrows that break our hearts, but also being in the presence of great beauty or receiving an undeserved kindness. I think this must happen so that God can mend them back correctly.
How precious is your lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 36:7
Showing posts with label Sorrow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sorrow. Show all posts
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
On The Last Day Of Christmas My True Love Gave To Me.....
No, it isn't twelve lords a'leaping. It is the man of sorrows.
Here is Jesus, true God from true God, who tells us to take up our cross and follow him, that to gain our life we must lose it, that those who mourn are blessed because they will be comforted. This all just seems like theory until that cross becomes heavier than we can imagine, that the life we thought we were living gets turned upside down, that the comfort in grief is delayed and all we can do is hang on to the promise.
In all the messiness and sin and sorrow of this life, God didn't just wipe the slate clean. He didn't make us all automatons. He became one of us, to live, to suffer, to die and to rise again raising all of life and creation with him. It seems absurd, too much even, but that is love, isn't it? Love is absurd, self giving, lowering oneself to raise the other up, causing suffering to now have meaning, even becoming redemptive.
This is the mystery of the incarnation...the mystery of Christmas.
Here is Jesus, true God from true God, who tells us to take up our cross and follow him, that to gain our life we must lose it, that those who mourn are blessed because they will be comforted. This all just seems like theory until that cross becomes heavier than we can imagine, that the life we thought we were living gets turned upside down, that the comfort in grief is delayed and all we can do is hang on to the promise.
In all the messiness and sin and sorrow of this life, God didn't just wipe the slate clean. He didn't make us all automatons. He became one of us, to live, to suffer, to die and to rise again raising all of life and creation with him. It seems absurd, too much even, but that is love, isn't it? Love is absurd, self giving, lowering oneself to raise the other up, causing suffering to now have meaning, even becoming redemptive.
This is the mystery of the incarnation...the mystery of Christmas.
Friday, December 25, 2009
An Ambivalent Christmas
Though I love Christmas, it always holds a bit of ambivalence for me. Jesus is born and worshiped, yet the prophecies even before his birth tell of wretched, horrible things to come, that he will be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
This Christmas the ambivalence is even greater. I am to be celebrating the Christ child while still mourning the death of my own. I'm afraid there isn't much room in my heart for the celebrating this year. My Christmas wish list changed from nursing dresses and diaper covers to that new book by Scot McKnight and maybe some paint for the bathroom. This just isn't how it was supposed to be, and yet, it is.
So here we are at Christmas, twelve days of it in fact. A child is born to die so that others might live, even those who who never had to chance to take a breath. It is deserving of both joy and sorrow. I wonder if these paradoxes are obvious those in the heavenlies, or only to those of us on this side of the veil.
This Christmas the ambivalence is even greater. I am to be celebrating the Christ child while still mourning the death of my own. I'm afraid there isn't much room in my heart for the celebrating this year. My Christmas wish list changed from nursing dresses and diaper covers to that new book by Scot McKnight and maybe some paint for the bathroom. This just isn't how it was supposed to be, and yet, it is.
So here we are at Christmas, twelve days of it in fact. A child is born to die so that others might live, even those who who never had to chance to take a breath. It is deserving of both joy and sorrow. I wonder if these paradoxes are obvious those in the heavenlies, or only to those of us on this side of the veil.
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