a thought about mourning...

i have been thinking recently about how i have this tendency inside of me to assume that something bad has happened. not like in a negative pessimistic way, but when a situation arises where it seems possible that someone close to me has been hurt or something like that.

i am finding that i have a tendency to almost clamp up inside in this fear that bad news is going to come. which might just sound like a bad case of being a worrier. but while I do think that i can be too much of a worrier, i don’t know that worry is the root of these feelings. it may be a part of the feelings, but i don’t think that it is the root.

at the root of these feelings, i think, is a desire to not have to feel pain and hurt and to be in mourning. i am not sure that it is really about worrying about others and their well-being, but rather i think that it is more about my own comfortability.

i taught this past wednesday on the beatitudes and in those, Jesus says, “blessed are those who mourn”. he is saying, “i am with you when you mourn”. he is not telling us that we need to seek out mourning and try to be mournful…but he is saying that when we mourn, he is with us and he will bring an ultimate comfort in those times that we wouldn’t otherwise know.

so, i am not saying that i need to figure out how to be looking forward to and being excited about bad things happening that might cause me pain or anguish. but i am saying that i need to stop letting this negative feeling win out and start trusting God to have a plan and that if and when that plan does include pain and suffering and mourning (because it will), that i will be better for it in the end and i will come to understand and know God as the ultimate comforter in ways that I wouldn’t otherwise know.