So, I am here in the US of A and I am really learning a lot from this experience. As some of you know, I came home to be with my family as my last grandma passed away. I had known before I left to go to South Africa about her condition with pancreatic cancer, and none of this was too much of a surprise. Nevertheless, anytime that you lose someone you love, it’s a shock and it is difficult. I knew coming here that it would be a little harder to be without Miah on this first trip back to my own country, to go through this loss, and this culture shock, and the change alone. But as always, God has been my rock and my refuge, and He has provided all the embraces and emotional sustenance that I ever needed or wanted. He is such a faithful God!
One of the things that has sustained me in this time is knowing that Jesus has been through what I am going through, and wants to go through it with me all over again, because His love is that incredible. I have been reading the story of Lazarus and Jesus has been speaking to me through this story of what He is doing in my life today. If you read the story, in John 11, you will notice how much the disciples were confused about Jesus wanting to go back to a town where people tried to kill him, to help his friend who was “sleeping”. This is one of those times when Jesus stops trying to let them understand on their own and He just tells them plainly that He is about to do a miracle, for their sake, so that they would believe him. Jesus knew going into the situation what He was going to do. He knew he was about to blow their minds and change their absolute sorrow to absolute joy, but he was not hasty.... he did a few intentional things before he displayed his power and authority. What a beautiful part Martha played in this story as she was able to declare her theology out loud to the disciples. And Jesus must have set that up, because before he raised his friend from the dead, he got to say, in spoken and written word, that He is the resurrection and the life, and what he said following this was the ultimate declaration of authority over life and death. And when He says things like this throughout scripture, He incites a response from each of our hearts.
Immediately after he gets his response, he does something that hits me so hard. He weeps. He weeps....... Jesus, the Son of the living God, knowing He has the power over death and that he was about to bring his friend back to life, wept. I think the shortest verse in the bible has a profound message to all of us on this side of eternity. Jesus does not just show us how to solve all issues of pain and suffering, or even just how to bring life into a situation filled with death, but Jesus shows us how to go through life experiencing the depth of each feeling with each other. He stops to weep with the people, overcome with the emotion that the people around him were feeling. He took the time to drink in the uniqueness of the emotions we feel on this earth. And because of this, I know he understands me, he feels with me, and he hurts with me in this time over my loss.
Praise God that it’s okay to feel. Praise God that it’s okay to be overwhelmed. But praise Him that Jesus did not let His emotions change the reality of who He was or what He came to do. He gets up from mourning and raises Lazarus from the dead. Because of Jesus, death is not where my grandmother is resting right now, but she is resting in LIFE. Turns out, Jesus’ words are true! And I believe them with everything that I am...... read the story.
I have lost an incredible role model in my life. You don’t get people like my grandma too often in this world anymore, and she is definitely a soul that will have infinite impact on this earth. But she also will live on in my actions and in my life and in our family for generations to come. She was a woman who loved hard, who judged not, who was a determined lover of Jesus until her very last days. I think she would want me to leave this entry with this quote from my continuous role model:
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Do you believe this?
Posted by michelle at 07:26 PM. Filed under:
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