Devotional Thought of the Day:

⁸  Three times I prayed to the Lord about this and asked him to take it away. ⁹  But his answer was: “My grace is all you need, for my power is greatest when you are weak.” I am most happy, then, to be proud of my weaknesses, in order to feel the protection of Christ’s power over me. ¹⁰  I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:8-10 (TEV)

I knew what I was keeping down in my heart. And being very much displeased that these human things had such power over me, which in the due order and appointment of our natural condition must needs come to pass, with a new grief I grieved for my grief, and was thus worn by a double sorrow.

When I came across these words of Augustine this morning, they resonated deeply within me.  He is right, I am so weakened by grief, that even this weakness causes me to grieve.

I’ve laid to many to rest recently; I am watching friends bury those they love, their dads, their husbands, their siblings, and even their children.  Funerals with hundreds in attendance, a graveside with 7.

I grieve because I grieve, that my faith seems so weak in the face of death.  As I attempt to move past this grief, I find myself unable to do so.  Even as I see those I am ministering to, those who I try to point to the hope that is in Christ, hope I firmly hold onto because I know His love,the tears still flow, the heartache still pounds.

Why can’t I move from the trauma to the healing?  Why can’t I move from the sorrow to the joy?   Why can’t I move from the frustration that comes in realizing that life is all too short, to the confidence I should have, because I am a believer?  After all, I am a pastor, I should have enough faith, I should realize the truth, I should be able to shut out this sorrow, this grief?

Or should I?

I think Paul the apostle would say no, that it is in the midst of the trauma we find the Spirit’s comfort, where we find the healing that God has promised there will be a day when death loses its sting.  It is in the midst of the frustration that I stop trying to be strong, well aware that I cannot be. It is in the middle of the sorrow that I do find the peace, and yes the joy that comes from realizing that Jesus is here, sharing that grief, sharing that sorrow.

That death was defeated, not by avoiding it, rather it is dying that He destroyed death, and we now find life in Him.

I will admit this, in this last month and a half, when I have over and over been swamped with grief, and then have been grieved that I am not strong enough to get past it, in this time the most incredible worship I have experienced in my life has occurred.  Simply because God has met us, and comforts.  He is truly our refuge, our sanctuary, our hope and our life.

God has answered, His mercy is known… and we can rest….

Can I be thankful for the grief?  Not for the reason, I grieve, but for that which has accompanied the grief, His strength supporting me in my weakness?

Yes, I can be thankful for that.  AMEN!

Augustine, S., Bishop of Hippo. (1996). The Confessions of St. Augustine. (E. B. Pusey, Trans.). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.