Rachel Whisman

The text or call comes in unexpectedly. Your heart, which was just seconds ago weightless, relentlessly tugs you down. There is no absorption for the shock, just the fatal blow. Suffering. It has a beginning that leaves a scar that has the capability of slowing time in its place and disorienting you into a tailspin you did not see coming. 

This blow invaded Jesus’s life when the news of his close friend’s passing came to His attention. When he arrived, and as He saw what was before Him, we are told, “Jesus wept” (John 11:36). What if those two words were not in the Bible, “Jesus wept”? If they were not part of the story of Lazarus’s death? We would have missed out on a look into Christ’s heart for his beloved people. This statement, in God’s wisdom, is here for our encouragement. He did not rush past the hurt, but experienced it with us and continues to in our pain. He is not flippant, but “near to the brokenhearted” (Psalm 34:18). 

When suffering comes, and though you might not see Him clearly through the cascade of pain that has obliterated your vision. He is there. He extends His care through the comfort you find in locking in with a familiar gaze of a friend, who knows and understands you, across a room of people in your sea of isolation and agony. Through the presence of your tears as they unwelcomingly warm your face and let your heart catch a sliver of reprieve. In the embrace of a close friend as your shoulders shudder as it helps to ease some of the tension. Working, in the groanings of your weakness, where the only words you can utter are, “Have mercy, O Lord,” or even none, because life has been punched out of you, and your reeling just to face the day or hour before you. Corporately, as His church responds as the Holy Spirit does and intercedes in prayer for the needs of others. Presently, as He is always making intercession for His children (Hebrews 7:25). Truthfully, as the Psalms and other scripture are the only solace for your soul because they put into words what is broken inside of you.

For those in suffering, it is hard to see, and Jesus saw the best even while He was suffering, and He chose to weep. He models how we should respond to those in our lives who are hurting. We weep with them. We show them Christ’s care in the silence that we offer when their hearts are overburdened. In the love we express as we humble ourselves and meet them where they are, just as Christ did for us. We help others see past ourselves and direct their gaze onto God, who is the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).