Blessed are Those Who Mourn

“Blessed are those who mourn.” You see, there’s blessing in the simple act of mourning. Even before the “and they shall be comforted.” In fact, the comfort itself, I would submit comes from the act of faith it takes to enter into the existential reality of loss. Because that’s when, and only when, we get to see Jesus in our stories, I get to believe it’s worth it, that’s the faith part, to feel the loss so Jesus can give it His worth. There’s something both transformative and redemptive about the act of mourning. If we are not seeing Jesus in the midst of our pain, his fingerprints on every shame-soaked, sin-drenched, sorrow-filled page of our stories, we are not seeing Him redeeming our stories, and that means we are not seeing Him as Lord of all, reconciling all things to Himself.