Mourning with those that mourn

 

Matthew 5:4 in the New Testament declares “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Mosiah 18:8-9 tells us “…as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens that they may be made light; yea and are willing to mourn with those that mourn...” D&C 42:45 shares this beautiful idea “Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die…” I think sometimes in our world, we neglect the importance of mourning, of really feeling the sense of loss, whether it’s for our health, a loved one, or a change in relationship.  We seem to have this idea that mourning makes us weak, not recognizing that it is a healthy and natural part of loving another person, that when they pass, we will mourn them.

A family member of mine was talking about how she felt like she really missed out on mourning the loss of a close loved one, and it has affected her mental health for years. It gave me pause, and made me dive in and think about how well I give myself and others the chance to mourn. I realized that sometimes I don’t even give myself the space to feel the feelings that I have, whether it be anger or mourning or terror or whatever.  It is good to move on from strong negative feelings, we can’t necessarily stop all the other things happening in our life just because of them, but they ARE important to feel and recognize and to process.  Sometimes when we have a friend (or ourselves) going through grief over a loved one, we tend to diminish it or to try to encourage them to quickly move on or get past it.

A perfect example of this was the Savior himself when his friend Lazarus died (take a look at John 11 for the full story).  When I was a teenager, a few of my friends that were in my Sunday School and religious classes joked that their favorite scripture was John 11:35  “Jesus wept.” (It’s very easy to memorize, and super short: just 2 words.) But think of the impact from that…Jesus knew that Lazarus was going to be perfectly fine, He was going to raise his friend from the dead in just a short while.  And He did. He called this friend back from death (4 days after his passing.)  But when He arrived in Bethany, He still took the time to feel the feelings with Mary and Martha, to weep with them, to truly mourn with those that mourned.  He followed his own counsel to “live together in love” and also to “mourn with those that mourn”.  He also brought sweet comfort to his friends.

I am not saying we all need to wallow in sadness forever, and I don’t think that’s what Jesus is saying either.  Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us that there is a time and a season for all things.  We need to be sure that we don’t just pass over the time to mourn, the time to lose, or the time to break down.  We also need to be sure that we don’t spend all our time in mourning and loss either; we should definitely take the time to feel joy, to gain purpose, to build up. All things in balance, of course. 

When our son died, we literally had people say things like “Well, it can’t be that bad, you only got to have him for a week, so you didn’t really know him that well.” Or “Do you feel like you’ve moved on yet?” We don’t spend all our time mourning him, but we loved and love him, and there are still days when we really feel that loss, when we wish he was here with us celebrating family events and moments. And that is OK, and nobody should make us feel like we’re broken for loving and missing our son. Mourning with those that mourn might mean different things to different people, but definitely it can mean taking the time to weep with someone, even if you know things are going to work out alright in the end, just as Jesus did.