The Cross and the Healing of our Hurts
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matt. 5:4
Many people use this verse to speak about life’s tragedies, and when we mourn over these things we will be comforted. But the greatest thing we have to mourn over is our sin, and if Christ can comfort us in this tragedy, then every other tragedy will pale in comparison and be absorbed into that comfort also. The foundation of all our hope and comfort is found in the death and resurrection of our Lord, for on the cross the price for our sin was paid, and in the resurrection the victory is found. There is no tragedy in this life that will bring us to our knees in mourning that is as significant of a problem as our sin, and when our greatest problem is cured, the comfort spreads to the lesser ones like a soothing balm. In vain we search for many medicines to cure our many wounds, when there is only one medicine that is effective and it will comfort them all. It is the balm of Gilead: the Blood of Christ.
-Doug Eaton-
Labels: cross, Fear, Forgiveness, Justification, Trials
posted by Doug E. @ 3:57 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Recently, I was talking to another friend who's father recently passed away. Her mother is dealing with depression and sadness - the man she was married to for 50+ years was gone. I understand the sadness.
But, if I could talk to my friend's mother, and ask her to tell me all about her life, she would no doubt, as we all do, look back at the "hard times" and tell us that they would not change a thing - that they would take all the hard times all over again to have the good times that came with them.
The hard things in our past shape us as much as the good things. Without them, we would not be who we are. We would not love whom we love. We would not be where we are. We might not be married to the person we are married to. We might not have the children we have.
Everyone who, in the present life, is joyful and happy, and who looks back at the life in retrospect, always seems to agree that somehow it was worth it.
Once the healing is done, the hurt is turned to joy far more powerful that they could have imagined before. And not just any joy. Not even merely great joy. But a special kind of joy that is very particular and peculiar to the possesors. A kind of joy that is, like marriage, special and unique just to them, and shared just by them, and into which none other can intrude or disrupt. They are all, commonly heard to say "If I could, I would do it all over again with you, I wouldn't change a thing."
My only question, then, to people dealing with sadness or grief in the present (if they are believers in Christ, and called by His name) is simply "Why should this be any exception?" Knowing how all our past sadness we have absorbed, and even embraced for the faith building quality of it, and have come out the other end being uplifted and strengthened, and built up... we should know that in the hands of a powerful, loving God, this too will pass and turn again with joy overflowing. We just have to trust God that it is so when we cannot see it at the present.
To the lost, to those without faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, to those who have no hope of eternal life, there's good reason to be sad. But to the people of God, who know the truth, who know that death is not the end, who know that death is not even a moment's interuption of that soul's existence... to those people, trials are a happy occasion - even when they bring us to the point of the death of a loved one. Especially the death of a child, because of all people, it is only children whom Jesus gave the unconditional call of "let them come to me."
A great many people are sad about death, and a great many people fear it. And it took me a good long while to understand why. To most people, they think of this life as "That's all there is." If you don't get it in this life, you just don't get it. So anything that you miss in this life is just missed.
How far from the truth that is.
Full text: http://www.uniuslibri.com/UniusLibriIndex.asp?action=links&articleid=3
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