When Do You Stop Worrying?

I remember as a boy, I would spend much of the summer at my grandparents who lived in the same town. That was because two cousins from another community would come for the summer. On Saturday nights we would go to the movies which was just across the street from our grandparents. When the movie was over I could always look across the street and see grandma looking out through those old blinds. I thought how silly that was. Later, as a young married adult, my parents told me if they were traveling that grandma wanted them to call when they reached their destination. How silly that was. Fast forward now about a dozen years. I realized that it wasn't silly at all. It was an act of extreme love. Grandma wasn't being nosy, she simply loved me, my cousins and my parents with a love that could not be expressed in words.
As a parent myself and a grandparent, I know understand that love. We want to make sure our family is safe. We have an unconditonal love, although my teenage children doubted that. We would easily give up our life for theirs. Unfortunately, that is not always possible. I have worked with many families who have lost a child or grandchild. There are no words that can comfort them. It's out of sync! Parents are supposed to die before their kids. Our kids are not supposed to suffer, to feel pain, to feel alone, lost and empty. But they do. When I have heard someone say to a grieving parent, "You'll get over it," I sometimes chime in by saying, "No. You will never get over it. You are not supposed to." I have heard people say, "God needed them more than we do." Nonsense!! Nobody needed that son or that daughter more that the parent and grandparent. Yes, they are certainly in a better place, but we want them with us. To say that God needed them more depicts a mean God that I could not worship.
But I can tell you this much, when we hurt God hurts. When we weep, God weeps. The shortest verse in the Bible says, "Jesus wept." Two words......Jesus wept. He cried. He felt the inner pain and he felt it for us. Jesus does not take away the pain, because pain is part of life. But he does give us a "peace that passes understanding." And God understands what we go through. He watched as his Son was rejected, as he was spit upon, as he was beaten and as he died. God's heart was broken. But God also watched on that glorious morning as the stone was rolled away and as his Son came back to life. And that's what he promises us. In this world there is pain, there is sorrow and suffering. But as Christ rose from the grave so shall those who believe. The grave is "the valley of the shadow of death," but it is not the final destination. "Yea, though we PASS THROUGH the valley......" Hear that, we pass through. If you are a parent or grandparent you absolutely know what it is to hurt for your child. You know what it is to worry. And sadly, some of you know what it is to get that dreaded call or knock on the door. Words cannot describe that pain, but remember "Jesus wept." He wept for you, but he also rose from the grave for you and for those you love.