Jesus Wept, And So Can I

It’s been hard to write these last few months. I find myself staring at blank pages in my writing journal that would normally be full, and after a while, just closing the pages, defeated.

I think it’s a mix of things. A mix of spiritual desolation, human desolation, a busy season, and simply trying to show up for everyone and everywhere that I am needed.

And the spiritual desolation doesn’t hurt in the way it once did. There is a newness to this season. I remember a few months ago, in a session with my spiritual director, I was sharing how clearly I felt the Lord speaking to me about a situation in my life. As we rejoiced over it together, she said, “The Lord will wean you off the consolations…and will you still trust Him?”

Well, she was totally right.

Prayer is steady. Prayer is consistent. It is still the bedrock of my day. But the dryness no longer feels like a punishment, as it has in the past. It feels more like an invitation. An invitation to trust Him in the silence. To still show up in the silence. To remember the consolations and live from them now, in the present, even when the consolations today are few and far between.

The human desolation feels heavier, if I am honest with myself.

Months of bottled-up emotions feel like they are finally bubbling to the surface, and I can’t seem to contain them anymore.

And thanks be to God for that.

Somewhere along the way, I learned that showing emotion was dangerous, that it was a burden, and that it simply wasn’t holy. God allows all things for a reason, and so there must be no reason to feel anger or frustration or sadness over the things that feel terribly painful in my life. Because God is in control, and He works all things for good.

But there is this grief I feel, deep in my heart. A grief I have been trying to keep buried. A grief that feels ancient in my life and my story, but also strangely new at the same time.

A grief of feeling helpless in the face of a situation I cannot change.

A grief of pushing a timeline I wanted, and wishing I hadn’t.

A grief of giving my heart away, only to have it feel betrayed.

A grief of feeling like I am all alone.

A grief of what I wish was, and what I wish wasn’t.

A grief of what could have been.

A grief of what should have been.

A grief of what has not yet come.

I feel this grief so acutely and so overwhelmingly that sometimes it brings me to my knees. It is simply too much to hold.

It is like I am standing before a looming storm, trying with all my might to go around it; to find a way around it, to somehow get to the other side without having to walk through it.

Because the last thing I want is to go through it.

What if I can’t handle it? What if it breaks me?

It all came to the surface recently as I sat in my office with a friend. As tears of grief streamed down my face, tears of hurt and betrayal and confusion and pain, he shared something with me that I knew, but I don’t think had ever truly registered until that moment.

“Emma,” he said, “Jesus wept too. He was fully God and fully man.”

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

Fully God AND fully man.

I found myself drawn to the story of Martha, Mary and Lazarus in Scripture, three dear friends of mine.

As Jesus arrives in Bethany, what a sight to behold. His friends, the sisters Mary and Martha, are mourning.

Martha, full of both faith and sadness, says to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

And Jesus wept.

Jesus wept, knowing that in just minutes He would perform an incredible miracle and raise His friend from the dead.

Jesus wept, knowing that He would soon embrace His friend and His friends’ sisters as they rejoiced over life restored.

Jesus wept before the miracle.

Jesus wept knowing He would raise Lazarus from the dead.

I don’t even know how to wrap my head around it.

As fully man, Jesus felt all the grief and anguish and pain of loss, and the effect of that loss on Martha and Mary.

As fully God, He knew what He was doing and why He was doing it. And yet, as fully man, He allowed Himself to grieve.

I look at the situations in my own life that feel heavy with grief, this storm I keep trying to run around, and somewhere inside of me, it still feels wrong to weep. Wrong to grieve.

Because God is good. God is capable of resurrection. I just need to believe that and hold onto faith and be strong…right?

And yet…

Jesus wept.

Jesus grieved.

Jesus mourned.

And Jesus still had a plan for resurrection and redemption.

Perhaps grief is not opposed to faith.

Perhaps I can acknowledge and process my pain and hurt while still believing and hoping in a God who can make dead things come to life.

Perhaps weeping comes before rejoicing.

Perhaps Jesus isn’t asking me to hold it all together or pretend the wound doesn’t hurt.

Perhaps He is asking me to weep with Him over the tragedies and wounds in my life.

Perhaps I don’t have to know how the story ends to let myself grieve the chapter I am in.

Perhaps I can trust that resurrection does not make the grief meaningless.

Perhaps, before I see anything come back to life, I am simply being invited to sit beside Jesus and weep.

And maybe, for now, that is enough.

The same Jesus who wept at the tomb is the Jesus who called Lazarus out of it.

The same Jesus who entered fully into the grief of His friends is the Jesus who brings life where there seems to be none.

I don’t know all of what this looks like. But I do know that for now, I can let Jesus hold the hope while I learn how to weep.