A Backdrop for His Glory

"Don't cry," he said.  I knew he wanted to bring comfort but I also knew my daughter needed to cry. Crying was the right response that night. We were gathered around the bedside of someone we loved watching her draw her finale labored breaths. The tears flowed the pain was real and yet we were all searching for where faith and grief intersect.

In times like this prayers are not elaborate. Martha and Mary were watching their brother die. It was a painful vigil. "So the sisters sent word to Jesus, 'Lord, the one you love is sick.'" (John 11:3) When the pain is deep the words are few. Jesus heard, he understood the grief they were experiencing but he didn't come right away. He had chosen to paint the glory of the Resurrection on the canvas of their life. 

Suffering the death of someone you love is a very confusing. When grief comes it is like a cloudy day, you know the Sun is shining even though you can't see it or feel it's warmth. I see this when I read about Jesus' encounter with Martha after her brother's death. She still believed she just didn't understand. Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"(John 11) She really did believe but when they got to the tomb and Jesus said to take the stone away she warned him that after four days the dead body would stink.

Jesus didn't condemn the deep emotional response that death brought in fact, "Jesus wept." This reminds me of the of what it said in Isaiah 53 when it describes Jesus as, "a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." Jesus identified with their pain. He heard them when they told him that their brother was sick. It was on this dark canvass of human suffering that he chose to display the truth of the Resurrection.

Lord Jesus, thank You for hearing my prayers even when my prayer is a simple telling of what I am experiencing. Thank You for understanding my confusion, and please, take my messy life and let is be a backdrop for Your glory.