Psalms 30 verses 11-12 read, "Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: Thou has put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever."
Did you know that I used to mourn singleness? Doesn't that sound like a strange thing to mourn? Typically, when we see the word "mourn", we associate that with the word, "grief", or with the word, "death". We normally don't see the word "mourn" associated with the state of being single. However, for a 16 year old girl in high-school who feels like she's missing out on something because all of her friends are in relationships and she's not, singleness can be a big deal. Or, for the 30 year old woman who has been a bridesmaid in countless weddings, attended numerous dateless dances and events, and gone through several failed relationships, singleness can be a big deal. Or, take the young man or woman who has been in a previously engaged relationship, spent years or months investing in another person's life, planning a wedding, or planning for a future family, when all of a sudden those plans change, singleness is definitely a big deal.
You see, we mourn the things we care about, we mourn the lives we don't have, we mourn our disappointed dreams, our hopeless expectations, and our desires that just haven't come to pass, and you know what? That's okay. It's okay to mourn, in fact, the Bible beautifully, albeit somewhat strangely articulates that those who mourn are blessed. But, why are they blessed? How are they blessed? What is the good in mourning, what is the purpose of mourning? Well, the Bible says, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
Did you catch that? "They shall be comforted." The good of the mourning--or, as one could call it--the sweet spot of the inevitable painstaking, grief-soaked, awful crying sessions, is the promise in the word of God that those who mourn shall be comforted. I know this, because I have lived it.
You see, my story and my testimony is that ever since I was a "little girl" or preteen, I prayed that the Lord would send me my future husband, and that this person would be the first person I engaged in a serious relationship with. I mean, I truly prayed that this person would be my first boyfriend, my first love, and my first kiss. I wrote letters to this person, I stashed them under a Nike shoe box underneath my bed, and intentionally told the Lord that I wanted Him to write me a beautiful love story. I told Jesus I would wait for Him to bring me the One when the time was right because I really and truly just wanted to date and marry one man. (What can I say, I am a one-man woman at heart!)
However, what I didn't know is how hard it was going to be to wait on this future person to get here. At times, I was going to feel unworthy of any person's love, un-loveable because nobody was taking the time to date me, and rejected because none of the boys I liked ever liked me back. Many nights, I stayed awake wondering why nobody ever "picked" me, nobody ever asked me out, or why I wasn't good enough. Many days I would come home from school tired, upset, or depressed because I was trying so hard to be likeable or appealing or be something that maybe somebody would want, yet I was failing tremendously at loving the One who died for me and wanted all of me. I lacked a lot of self-confidence, I had a terrible perspective of my body image, and I felt like a deflated balloon all of the time. To describe it in other ways, I truly felt like the "ugly duckling" or the "odd one out." Sometimes this drove me to try and gain attention from people in unhealthy ways. I cared way too much about what certain people thought of me to the point where I couldn't be my self around them. I wanted to attract certain persons or things into my life so much so I started lowering my standards or settling for those people or things who weren't good for me. I tried to be a different version of Hailey that was not who God had intended for me to be, and each time I tried this, I failed. I failed in so many ways.
Now, you may be thinking well that doesn't seem like something too awful to have to go through, and when you compare it to what others have experienced, in all truthfulness, really it's not. I haven't mourned the loss of losing a parent, I haven't mourned the loss of losing a child or miscarrying, I haven't mourned the loss of growing up in a home without both parents around. I haven't mourned the loss of experiencing poverty. I haven't mourned the loss of losing a loved one due to a drug addiction. But, I have mourned the loss of a relationship, or lack thereof countless times, and have experienced a heartache that only Jesus truly knows because He was right there beside me, comforting me, in the midst of my sorrow. I may not have experienced the loss that you are currently going through, but I have experienced enduring the loss of wanting something and not having it for 10+ years. I have had to exercise waiting upon the Lord in times when I did not want to/did not feel like praying to Jesus especially during the times when I needed Him the most.
The truth is no matter what we are mourning, whether it's a big thing, or a small thing, no matter where we think it falls on the comparison scale to "other people's problems" it's a big deal to us. And, as a wise lady once told me, "The Lord cares about what we care about", so, if it's a big deal to us then it's a big deal to God. Jesus sees, He knows, He cares. He pays attention to the finite details, He shows up in the little things, He lets you know He's thinking of you, and He doesn't let you forget it, He's just that good. Really and truly we serve a great God, and though we may never understand what trials and afflictions He leads us into, we can trust that His way is best.
So, what does this blessing mean for believers? What do we gain from mourning our losses? Well, we gain the true Comforter, Jesus Christ. We gain the One who empathizes with us in our struggle, and we draw closer to the Holy Spirit in those moments of difficulty. We become better Christians through allowing Him to complete the work that He has started within us in conforming us to the image of His Son, Jesus (Romans 8:29). In our mourning, He is comforting us and changing us to be more like Christ. In our mourning we gain the Spirit of truth's (John 15: 26) healing presence and power in our lives unlike any other. We come to know the Lord in a more sincere way, and our relationship and walk with God blossoms because of our struggles. Our greatest blessing in the mourning is the fact that Jesus is always near, that we shall be comforted, and that His peace which passes all understanding will comfort/keep our hearts and minds rooted in Christ (Phil. 4:7). All of that is what we gain, that is why those who mourn are blessed, for they shall be comforted by the greatest Comforter there is, and when you have a Comforter like Jesus Christ who physically walked this earth, endured what he endured, and felt on all accounts what it was like to be human/experience all of our raw emotions, can you seriously tell me that you would need anything or anybody else?
God's plan is the best plan, my friends, and His promise is true..."Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). I know because I have lived it and because Jesus has faithfully and awe-inspiringly comforted me. He not only has comforted me in my sorrow by providing me with the privilege of knowing His Son, Christ, but he has also comforted me by answering a prayer request I didn't think would ever come to pass. He gave me my now fiancé, Martin Williams, the second greatest blessing I could have ever received aside from knowing the Lord. He delivered the man I had been praying for my whole entire life into my hands, and truly this man has been my first love, my first relationship, and even, my first kiss. I had to go through some things to get to this man (truly, we both did), and the Lord has blessed us both through giving us each other. The Lord has even answered some very hard-pressed prayer requests that were seemingly insignificant at the time. For example, every place I third-wheeled with my friends or every location in which I wished someone was beside me
on a date, God has allowed Martin & I to explore those activities in those places doing those specific things. I cannot tell you how faithful the Lord is. All of those letters that I wrote to my future husband growing up, I never knew just how specific the Lord would answer them, and, as it turns out, while I was writing to Martin, He had been writing to me. Yes, I got to read several beautiful letters he wrote to his future wife while we were both waiting on the Lord and waiting on each other's presence in our lives. And now, we are less than 70 days away from getting married to each other. God is so unexplainably good and ever so faithful. The Lord has truly turned my mourning into dancing and girded me with gladness. I am no longer crying over stupid boys that I never should have been interested in to begin with, but I have found the one whom my soul loves, and he is much better than I had ever anticipated or expected. The Lord truly outdid himself when he gave me my best friend, Martin Williams.
Jesus is faithful, I will say it again and again and again. Jesus is faithful!
Like the psalmist David says, "O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever" (Psalms 30:12)
"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:24
To my Honey With Much love,
Hailey Renee
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