Home | Which Tomb? An Easter Series - Part 3 >> |
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April, 2006 |
Season of Sorrows |
Posted by Brian Beers at 4/11/2006 7:59:00 PM (0 comments left) |
How has sorrow changed you? Has it affected you r relationship with the Lord? Stiffened your resolve to serve him? Sapped your strength? Or has the effect of sorrow become a tangled mess? Perhaps it is a tangle that you have grown tired of, and now you try to live as you did before the sorrow. I am turning back to this tangle again. I have no expectation of sorting it all out, but I do wish to consider what changes have taken root and grown up in my life. Perhaps some have borne good fruit. |
March and April are months sorrow for my families and me. Today marks 12 years since my first wife died in a maternity ward. The first of April was the first anniversary of my father-in-lawâs death â also premature. March 19th was three years since my 3-month-old son preceded me in death. And this past weekend was the memorial service for my grandmother-in-law through my first wife. I traveled down to So many things âseemingly-important nowâ meant nothing to me then. I burned with a desire to be the biggest thorn in the enemyâs side that I could be. He had plotted to overthrow the righteous order of the world, and that pervasive corruption stole my true love from me. I wanted revenge. I didnât want to be the big, flashy, news-worthy kind of thorn. I wanted to be the âHow could that have happened?!â kind of thorn. I wanted him to wish (after many, many years) that death had not claimed my wife so many years before. I wanted to be able to point to her death as the turning point. I nursed thoughts of that revenge. Yet time droned on, and I could not keep that fire stoked. Now stupidity and ignorance (yes â even my own) irritate me far more than is useful, and I only complain about them. Small things enrage me at times. I have conceded that even stupidity and ignorance are foes to great for me. Never mind about real enemies. They are too clever to be identified. I am not the thorn that I longed to be. Yes. How easy despair comes to us. It is easy to believe that the fires of anger are a sign change or even the only sign of change. But that simply isnât true. Changes that endure are the changes that often occur imperceptibly. Their import may not be recognized unless you go looking for them. These changes are the changes that I am looking for. What has changed for you? How long has it been since sorrow moved in? What furniture did sorrow rearrange? Did anything get thrown out? I will share the changes that I can observe in my life, but I would like to learn yours too. |