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Blessings in Sadness and Mourning
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Matthew 5:4 Great blessings belong to those who are sad now. God will comfort them.
Listen to the radio broadcast of Blessings in Sadness and Mourning
Download audio fileTragedy has a way of striking when we least expect it, and the suddenness, the shock factor, makes it infinitely worse.
A family, on a tight enough budget as it is, struggling to meet the rent payments and the school fees, and without warning, the bread winner is made redundant. It’s not just the financial pressure, as though that weren’t enough. But the humiliation, the attack on a person’s self worth. It’s a terrible loss.
As is the sudden death of a loved one. One moment they’re here, living, laughing, breathing. The next moment they’re gone. A betrayal, a sudden and terrible result to those routine medical tests. A car accident on the way to work.
Tragedy. It happens to all of us at some point in our lives. We don’t go looking for it. It just happens. And when it does, we’re left reeling. It tears the stuffing out of us. We’re overwhelmed with sadness, we naturally mourn the loss. For us, the whole world stops, life veers off into an alternate reality, almost in slow motion, as we try to come to grips with the terrible thing that’s just been dumped on our lives; the suddenness with which something good was snatched out of our hands forever.
And yet, God’s blessings show up in some very unexpected places.
Great blessings belong to those who are sad now. God will comfort them. (Matthew 5:4)
Or, perhaps, a translation with which you may be more familiar: blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
When I first read those words, over twenty years ago now, I was in the midst of the greatest tragedy of my life. An inky black cocktail of betrayal and loss that drove me right to the edge. I mean, right to the edge. It was so hard to fathom – how could Jesus possibly say something like that?
But here’s the crazy thing. As I prayed, as I drew close to Him, as I got to know Him in the midst of that terrible tragedy, to my absolute surprise, I discovered He was right.
His love, His comfort on those dark days … to this day, remain the greatest blessing of my life. I wouldn’t wish that tragedy on my worst enemy, yet I wouldn’t swap it for the world.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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