Changed in the Waiting
They Will Be Comforted
December 3, 2024
SCRIPTURE
MATTHEW 5:1-12
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
—MATTHEW 5:3-4
MATTHEW 5:1-12
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
—MATTHEW 5:3-4
In my experience there are few things more painful or disempowering than smiley platitudes in the midst of a long season of waiting. I have been through several of these seasons myself, but the most painful to date were the years of infertility and miscarriages before my first child was born. Month after month, optimism became more difficult, and the cheery words of others did less and less to encourage me.
It became increasingly difficult to put on a happy face, but I resisted my own grief and sought numerous ways to distract or numb myself: keeping busy and overcommitted, binge-watching British period dramas, giving myself as little time in silence as possible. But this avoidance only resulted in exhaustion and emotional detachment in all areas of my life. Finally I caved one day in my kitchen and had it all out with God. No longer able to keep the pain at bay, I voiced an angry, weepy lament of my current situation: how I longed to be a mother, how unfair it felt that I wasn’t, how I didn’t think I could keep waiting, even how guilty I felt for expressing all this negativity. (I was a pastor, after all! Shouldn't I be better at this hope thing?)
I didn’t really know what to expect, but something remarkable happened in the moments that followed. I had a feeling of stillness and peace I had not known in a long, long time. I sensed God’s presence not as a distant reality but as a very close friend, And while I was not given answers or sent an angel announcing my pregnancy, I was given a deep and abiding sense of God’s compassion and goodness—which gave me hope. I had hope that I was seen and had not been forgotten. I had hope that God longed to give me good things because God loves me. I had hope that God was present and active in my life, even if I didn’t know what God was doing.
In that moment I was not assured that I would become a mother. Although I begged for that promise, I didn't receive it. Instead, I was assured that God is good and faithful. Because of that, I could have hope for my future even if did not become a mother in the way I wanted. I sank to the bottom of my reality and found that my true source of hope was not an eventual fulfillment of my desire to have a child but a God who does all things well.
What I experienced that day in my kitchen happened many more times over my roller-coaster ride of a journey to motherhood. Every time I had the courage to name my disappointment and express my suffering through lament, my hope was strengthened. Perhaps you've experienced this kind of mystifying hope in the midst of lament as well.
I’ve never actually been in a free-falling elevator, but I imagine this process to be like what being in a free-falling elevator might be like, everything in us resisting the impact at the bottom. All along the way we scramble to find something that will hold, grasping at quick fixes to suspend the fall momentarily before it resumes its descent with seemingly faster speed. The farther we fall, the more we realize none of our own solutions is enough to match the magnitude of the need.
Then, just when it seems that despair might have the last word, when all our human engineering has failed, we touch bottom. But, much to our relief, it’s not the traumatic crash landing we expected. Instead, we find ourselves on nothing other than that solid ground we've been singing about all these years: On Christ the Solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand!
Lament reorients us to know the truth and hold unswervingly to the hope we profess that the One who promised is faithful (see Hebrews 10:23)! Perhaps this paradoxical hope paradox is the blessing Jesus promised to those who know the language of mourning and lament.
It became increasingly difficult to put on a happy face, but I resisted my own grief and sought numerous ways to distract or numb myself: keeping busy and overcommitted, binge-watching British period dramas, giving myself as little time in silence as possible. But this avoidance only resulted in exhaustion and emotional detachment in all areas of my life. Finally I caved one day in my kitchen and had it all out with God. No longer able to keep the pain at bay, I voiced an angry, weepy lament of my current situation: how I longed to be a mother, how unfair it felt that I wasn’t, how I didn’t think I could keep waiting, even how guilty I felt for expressing all this negativity. (I was a pastor, after all! Shouldn't I be better at this hope thing?)
I didn’t really know what to expect, but something remarkable happened in the moments that followed. I had a feeling of stillness and peace I had not known in a long, long time. I sensed God’s presence not as a distant reality but as a very close friend, And while I was not given answers or sent an angel announcing my pregnancy, I was given a deep and abiding sense of God’s compassion and goodness—which gave me hope. I had hope that I was seen and had not been forgotten. I had hope that God longed to give me good things because God loves me. I had hope that God was present and active in my life, even if I didn’t know what God was doing.
In that moment I was not assured that I would become a mother. Although I begged for that promise, I didn't receive it. Instead, I was assured that God is good and faithful. Because of that, I could have hope for my future even if did not become a mother in the way I wanted. I sank to the bottom of my reality and found that my true source of hope was not an eventual fulfillment of my desire to have a child but a God who does all things well.
What I experienced that day in my kitchen happened many more times over my roller-coaster ride of a journey to motherhood. Every time I had the courage to name my disappointment and express my suffering through lament, my hope was strengthened. Perhaps you've experienced this kind of mystifying hope in the midst of lament as well.
I’ve never actually been in a free-falling elevator, but I imagine this process to be like what being in a free-falling elevator might be like, everything in us resisting the impact at the bottom. All along the way we scramble to find something that will hold, grasping at quick fixes to suspend the fall momentarily before it resumes its descent with seemingly faster speed. The farther we fall, the more we realize none of our own solutions is enough to match the magnitude of the need.
Then, just when it seems that despair might have the last word, when all our human engineering has failed, we touch bottom. But, much to our relief, it’s not the traumatic crash landing we expected. Instead, we find ourselves on nothing other than that solid ground we've been singing about all these years: On Christ the Solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand!
Lament reorients us to know the truth and hold unswervingly to the hope we profess that the One who promised is faithful (see Hebrews 10:23)! Perhaps this paradoxical hope paradox is the blessing Jesus promised to those who know the language of mourning and lament.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION, DISCUSSION, AND PRAYER
When have you attempted to resist your own feelings of grief or disappointment? Why do you think humans do this?
When have you experienced the strengthening of your hope in the middle of lament?
What lament do you need to voice now in order for your hope to be strengthened?
When have you attempted to resist your own feelings of grief or disappointment? Why do you think humans do this?
When have you experienced the strengthening of your hope in the middle of lament?
What lament do you need to voice now in order for your hope to be strengthened?