Reflections

I will take up weeping and wailing. Jeremiah 9:10

The image of God that we are taught in books, classes and churches is usually an austere, cold, distance God. Jeremiah paints a different picture. The prophet Jeremiah paints a picture of a God who is affected by what is going on in the world. God says, “O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night…I will take up weeping and wailing” (Jeremiah 9:1, 10). The Gospel writer John, when reporting on the death of Lazarus, notes that, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).
When William Sloane Coffin, an American preacher and scholar, experienced the death of his young son in a tragic car accident, he was not consoled by visitors who brought with them, casseroles, well-meaning bible verses, and the self-protecting words in an otherwise unspeakable situation, “It was the will of God.”
In regards to God’s will, Sloane Coffin says, “Never do we know enough to say that [it was the will of God]. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first of all our hearts to break.”
Heartbreak is a part of who God is and who God has been throughout all of human history. God’s heart breaks with yours. The pain is deep, but God is good and God is with you in your grief.