The last week or so has been really hard. The scabs of grief have been pulled back a bit and a number of fronts have been both frustrating and disappointing. To be honest, the reminder to look on the positive feel both trite and a kind of “spiritual band-aid” to avoid the pain.
It’s true- God IS working all things together for good. Yet, can that truth be embraced until we honor the pain, the hard of the moment? What if the Gospel is big enough to hold both our deepest pains and the hope of resurrection? The longing for a life that is so terribly broken and yet looks forward to what is to come?
As I come into this Holy Week, I sense Jesus’ invitation to honor the pain. Jesus struggled though he knew God was faithful. Blood-soaked sweat wasn’t just some kind of poetic nicety, it was bearing the pain of the moment.
This holy week, may we find the grace to lament our pain. Not to run from it or to hide from it but to know that we are not alone in it. May the pain and the suffering draw us to find His heart in the grace of His daily faithfulness no matter how ordinary. May we exchange the trite niceties that dismiss our pain for a gospel that carries us through it.