In Mourning

I've been very fortunate in life.  I've never really had to face death.

Both of my parents are alive.  My grandparents are still with us.  Even my aunts and uncles are all around.  I never attended a funeral until I was in college when my great-grandmother passed away in her 90s.  I loved her, but we weren't super close.

The only time I ever experienced death was when we had to put my dog, Dude, down.  He was an old dog.  He lived a full life.  I owned him for 16 years.  When we took him to the vet that day, I broke down several times.  We went on a cathartic shopping spree we couldn't afford to mask the pain.

It was a difficult few days.

I mourned for him.

Mourning is different for everybody.  Everyone grieves in their own ways. 

Mourning, though, is not exclusive to pets, people and loved ones.  We mourn when we lose something we love.  Some people mourn when their favorite player retires.  Others mourn the completion of their senior year of high school.  Fathers mourn, in a way, when they give their daughters away in marriage.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:4 that "Blessed are they that mourn, for they will be comforted."

Jesus calls us blessed because of mourning.  He's not talking about the loss of a friend or a parent (or even a dog), but the loss caused by our sin.  Due to sin, we have a broken relationship with God.  Jesus died to reconcile that relationship.  The more we realize how holy Jesus is and how unrighteous we are, it leads us to mourning.

We mourn over our sin.  We are comforted by the forgiveness of that sin by Jesus.  When we mourn our sin, Jesus comforts us by remembering it no more.

That's amazing to me.  Jesus forgives and forgets.  I'm not capable of doing that.  I may forgive, but I can't erase my memory.  Jesus willing forgives and forgets the sin.  That's comfort.

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