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I Needed to be Sad
They had the best of intentions and what they said was true, but it was not at all helpful.
John 11:6,35, Psalm 34:18, Matthew 5:4-6
They had the best of intentions and what they said was true, but it was not at all helpful. I remember when my mom passed away after a seven year battle with cancer, and people will come up to me right away afterwards and say, I’m sorry for your loss, Nate, but she’s in heaven. Your mom’s in heaven. No more cancer, no more pain. And that’s what wasn’t helpful to me at the time. It wasn’t helpful because the way they said it, it almost made me feel like I shouldn’t be sad. That I needed to just be happy that, you know, I was, at the time I was a student to be a seminary student, training to be a pastor, and as a seminary student, it’s like, well, you know, the hope of heaven. You should put on a smiley face. But I needed to be sad for a bit. I needed to grieve. I couldn’t force happiness. I knew I would get there, but I couldn’t force it.
What helped me, and I remember really clearly being in front of the elevators in Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. I remember this Bible verse just so clear my mind. It’s the short verse. So from the Gospel of John chapter 11, it just says,
Jesus wept. (John 11:35)
And I love that verse so much, because that verse comes when Jesus is there at the scene where his friend Lazarus has died and Jesus is about to raise him from the dead. Actually, Jesus, we’re told Jesus waited to come to where his friend Lazarus was. He knew his friend Lazarus was sick, and he waited until his friend would die so that he could display God’s glory by raising him from the dead. (John 11:6) So Jesus knew fully that in a matter of minutes his friend would be back alive. And yet he wept. He wept because death is sad. Death is not what it was meant to be. It’s hard. He wept, knowing full well his friend would rise. And we can weep, too. And actually we should, because it’s when we. Well, like Psalm 34:18 says, when we have a broken heart, it says,
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted. (Psalm 34:18)
When we acknowledge how we are hurting, God meets us there. Or you think about the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter five. When Jesus says,
Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, because they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be filled. (Matthew 5:4-6)
It’s when you look to God, when you’re hungry for God, when you realize your sin, don’t put on a happy face and just yell, I’m forgiven! Bring your brokenness and your guilt and your shame before the cross. Lay it before him. Ask for forgiveness and let him fill you with that forgiveness and that healing. When you are crushed because of a loss, bring that before God. Come to worship. Read a devotion. Read his word and let him fill you. Don’t force yourself to feel better. Let him fill you. When you need hope for the future, come before him. Go to the Word. Go to the Lord’s Supper. You don’t force yourself to feel better. You go to the one who heals you and makes everything better.
Bring whatever it is that’s going on in your mind and your heart, feel what you feel, and then look to the one who makes it so that you, in his way and his time can truly heal.
