Visualize
Grieved: Experiencing a deep and poignant distress.[1]
“He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. He bore our sorrows and carried our grief.” –Isaiah 53:3b
Read
I stepped onto the front steps of our home on a cloudless June morning, the cool cement gritty on bare feet, the purple coneflowers swaying in the breeze at the end of the drive. I inhaled, drinking in the scent of summer when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my jean pocket with a light “Good morning!”
The scream-sob on the other end shattered the sky with the shards of a mother’s grief. My dear friend’s son, her only son, had taken his life. I froze, my mind racing with a thousand splintered thoughts as my friend wept and screamed, wept and screamed, wept and screamed.
Sometimes grief drops like a grenade, decimating life as we once knew it, shredding our hearts. How does a mother’s heart keep beating when her only son will never breath again?
Another friend, recently divorced and waiting tables as a single mom, crawled under a booth at work to pluck up a dropped French fry. Her knees crunched on the debris of the day—forks, napkins, crayons—then squished on a stray blob of ketchup. Once a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom, now shunned for choosing freedom over oppression and pinching pennies to make ends meet, her heart sagged with the weight of her losses. She cried at the sky, “Do I have to lose my dignity too?!”
No matter how it comes, grief crushes and disorients as it overwhelms.
What is your grief like today? This is a question I ask the grieving on dark days when there are no easy answers.
- “Grief feels like living as an amputee—a part of you is gone forever, but it throbs on and on.”
- “It feels like I swallowed a bowling ball that by the time it made it to my feet, I was gutted and that ball so heavy I couldn’t move.”
- “It feels I’ve been shipwrecked and the stuff of my life and the people in it are thrown across the sand, and I have no idea how to put it back together again.”
Feeling alone and misunderstood in our grief intensifies the pain. Knowing that Jesus was a man of sorrows, familiar with grief, offers some comfort. We are not alone in our tears. Yet sensing Jesus’ presence when the shroud of grief descends can feel like grasping at the wind.
To bring Jesus closer, I’ve imagined his grief the night before his arrest, when he opened his heart to his closest friends, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”[2] Knowing the losses that lay before him—betrayal, abandonment, and his own gruesome death, Jesus longed for his friends to bear the weight of sorrow with him. As Jesus threw himself on the ground in the garden, begging his Father for another way, his friends nodded off to sleep. Three times Jesus woke them, pleading with them to stay awake. Three times they closed their eyes and slept like it was any other night of the week. Left alone, Jesus carried his losses while bearing ours.
As we lament our griefs, Jesus weeps with us, gathering our tears in his bottle, for he carries them close to his heart. When words fail us, the psalms and songs of other believers speak on our behalf. If words fail you today, perhaps these, written by the single mom kneeling on the debris of her broken day, can voice your heart:
“Jesus be near to me
Share in my suffering
You are lowly
And You are meek
You were beaten and not esteemed
Surely You bore our grief
O man of sorrows
Come weep with me
O man of sorrows come weep
Come weep with me
“Sparrow has found a home
Where she may lay her loves
On Your altar, my Lord and King
This same place of sacrifice
Jesus You paid the price
O man of sorrows
Come weep with me
O man of sorrows, come weep
Come weep with me
“O man of sorrows
O man of sorrows
With my grief acquainted
O man of sorrows
With my grief acquainted
Where else can I go
Where else can I go
Where else can I go
O man of sorrows
“Until Your kingdom come
Your will on earth be done
All this pain will be redeemed
Comfort my aching soul
Jesus, only You know
O man of sorrows come weep with me
O man of sorrows come weep
Come weep with me.” –KK
Ponder
What is your grief like today?
Pray
Inhale: O man of sorrows,
Exhale: Come weep with me.
*You can find other posts in this series here.
[1] Merriam-Webster.com
[2] Matthew 28:38, NLV. Biblegateway.com
Pursued 