All tagged mourning

I was lifted up by the message and scripture of my devotional reading today. The scripture reading that blessed me so immensely was from 2nd Corinthians. And, as I read this scripture, the words of my devotional reading this morning echoed in them. They spoke to me of Jesus being the pattern of prayer, selfless, and the great intercessor who stands at the right hand of God... In this I could see a lesson in how we should all pray for others… it was a lesson in love, and in comforting others.

Mourning - at some point in our lives, sadness and sorrow visit us all, but we find it to be like a winter field that is burnt off; from its ashes our capacity to praise God springs up anew, and in the spring we bear a bountiful crop. Like pruning increases the yield of a vine, and fertilizer nourishes the soil, so does our pain and suffering enrich the yield of our souls. In season our gladness returns, and we sing again, for although every man is meant once to die, in Christ he rises again, and our joy returns with eternal vigor.

We go to funerals of friends and family with hearts aching, or broken, suffering in our loss, but in times such as this we are led back to the Sermon on the Mount, and the words that Jesus delivered in the Beatitudes... specifically the second of these when He said: “Blessed are those who mourn.” Our tears are never to be held back, nor is our pain to be trivialized because in this place and at this time we are to receive the comfort of God.