Let Jesus Comfort You
Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted.
(Matthew 5:4)
I believe that one of the hardest things to do is to comfort someone who has lost a loved one. There are simply no words that can be said, or nothing that can be done, that would ease their pain. It’s easy for the person who is trying to do the comforting to feel helpless at that time. In one way or another, we’ve all been on both sides of the fence. We have been the one who has suffered the loss and we’ve been the one to comfort. However, there is one thing each person has in common during such difficult times…the need for Jesus.
Grief is difficult to let go of. Even when we can barely move or think, we still hang on to it. Jesus states in Matthew 11:28: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Heavy laden means to carry a heavy load, very tired, troubled or burdened. We all know what it feels like to carry a heavy load on our minds. We go day to day carrying the heaviness of a family problem, finance issues, a sick relative or even the death of a loved one on our minds. Day after day the weight seems to get heavier and heavier to the point we feel we can’t even take another step. Imagine carrying a 25 lb backpack on your back and every day another pound gets added to that bag. Soon, your body begins to feel the weight of what’s in that backpack. Your shoulders begin to ache, your back starts to pain and you may even get a headache as it affects your neck as well as your head. As you continue walking each day, another pound getting added to your backpack, you begin to feel the aches and pains all through your body and eventually your mind becomes affected to the point you just want to quit moving. This is how it is when we carry the weight of our burdens and losses with us everyday. It becomes so painful that to even take another step seems impossible to the point we want to quit moving altogether.
There is no problem to great or to small for the Lord to carry for you. There is no grief to painful for God to comfort and heal. Revelations 21:4 states:
“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
Take heart in knowing that in time, we will not have to suffer through the loss of our loved ones. In time, we won’t have to face such heavy afflictions that come at us. When we come to Christ and are saved, accepting Him as our savior, we have so much to look forward to! We can look forward to the Holy Spirit’s comfort when we do have to go through difficulty, pain and loss while living on this earth. We can look forward to Jesus’ overwhelming love for us. We can look forward to a day when we will have no more pain be it physical, spiritual or emotional. We can look forward to living eternity with God the Father and being in the safety and comfort of His loving arms.
Your pain and your struggle to get through each day doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to carry the burden and the pain that is with you. You can make a choice to turn it over to Jesus or to continue carrying it. If you choose to carry it, however, you must then ask yourself some questions.
– Why am I choosing to carry this pain/burden day after day?
– Is it helping me or hurting me?
– Is it making me feel free or is it keeping me held in the bondage of pain and sorrow?
– Am I afraid to give up the pain I feel over my loss as it’s the only thing left I have of my loved one? If I give it up, am I afraid I may forget them?
Though the last question may sound odd, it really isn’t. Sometimes we hold onto things in order to feel close to something we loved but lost as a reminder of that person or time in our lives that brought us great joy. Everyone has something they have kept as a memento of a loved one or event in their lives that brought them great joy. Yet, sometimes we can hold on to grief over losing someone (or even an animal) because our heart does not want to part with it. We may even feel we are betraying that person if we do try to heal and move on. However, God did not make us to be this way. We will all go through different seasons in our life time. Out of these seasons we are to learn and grow spiritually and use it to bring glory to God. Sometimes that glory comes in helping others through their own hurt and pain. Ecclesiastes 3 speaks about some of the different seasons we will go through:
vs 1-2 – To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die;
vs 4 – A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
Just as there will be one, there will be the other.
What are you holding onto today that is weighing you down and prohibiting you from moving forward? Who are you afraid to let go of for fear of losing them forever? As children, we all had something we held onto as our “security blanket”. That blanket made us feel comforted and secure. Sometimes even grief is all we have left of a loved one we once had. It keeps that person alive in our mind and heart. It can be our security blanket. But just as a child must one day surrender that security blanket over to their parent in order to realize there is nothing to fear and they really will be ok without it, so must we surrender our grief and pain over to our heavenly Father so we too can realize that there is nothing to fear and we really will be ok without holding onto the grief or that person. We aren’t betraying them when we do this. We aren’t forgetting their memory and the love we shared with them. We are simply choosing to remember them with joy instead of sadness. Something they would want.
Take time today to seek God and call upon Him to bring healing to your heart. He is with you and waiting for you to come to Him and to surrender your pain and grief so He can release upon you His comfort and peace. He wants nothing more than to heal your pain and help you get back to the life He has created you for. Your job on this earth isn’t done. You have to keep moving forward. Remember Psalm 30:5:
“…Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.”
Take that next step and allow that joy to come in the morning.
Father God, I am overwhelmed with pain and grief over my situation and my loss. I can’t bear to take one more step as the pain is just too much for me. I realize I cannot continue moving until this weight is removed from me. Father, I am afraid to surrender it to you as it is all I have left of the happier moments in my life. Yet, I don’t want to hold onto it because it is too heavy for me, causing me much pain an sorrow. Help me, Jesus, to surrender this to You so I may heal. Help me not to forget them but to remember them with joy and love. Lord, I surrender this pain and grief to You. Loose upon me your peace, comfort and joy so I may continue moving as your servant and help others going through the same situation in order to bring you glory and honor. I ask this in the name of Jesus…Amen.