An Unconquerable Adversary

Once grief is met and truly embraced, it always lingers like a shadow.  No matter how long the day that takes us away from the moment of loss, grief stays.  It may become a thing not constantly considered, but still it never lingers so far away it cannot come sweeping us away from the present moment into a memory that can never be erased.  We run from grief.  We talk about dealing with it as if it were some conquerable adversary.  We talk about working through it, but it is never a work completely done.

 

Jesus knew about grief.  Tradition tells us that He stood at the grave of Joseph, His earthly father.  There He watched His mother weep at the overwhelming loss and surely He wept there beside her.  There are other moments of loss and death and grief captured in the story of the gospel.  Stories that belong to the widow of Nain and the Bethany sisters quickly come to mind.  There were others, of course.  Not every one around Him was touched with healing powers that brought life instead of death. 

 

As surely as He lived, He was acquainted with the grief common to all of us.  On some days such knowledge brings comfort that enables us to make it, but on other days the sense of loss which comes to us seems beyond comfort.  About all we know is that we are never really alone.  Though it may seem that we are absolutely alone, He promised such would never be.  In our darkest moments we may find it impossible to believe, but our ability to believe does not diminish the reality of the promise.  Isaac Watts wrote a hymn entitled "O God, Our Help in Ages Past"  which has a line that sings, "our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home."  Maybe sometimes the best for which we can hope in the midst of our grief is to be pointed home.