Mourning and the Nearness of God

Nearly 23 years ago, a man walked into a crowded youth rally in Fort Worth and opened fire, killing 8 people. I still remember that night like it was yesterday. I can feel the air, thick with September heat. I can see the blinding lights of the first responders. I can sense the oppressive dread. And I can still feel the weight of overwhelming anguish when the middle-of-the-night phone call finally came.

I lost my friend, Kim Jones that night, and I am forever changed because of it. Two decades later, I still carry around the trauma. Sometimes it is passive. Other times it comes charging back with the same anguish and fear. 

This week it all came roaring back with another headline, another shooting and another incomprehensible tragedy. Trauma does that. It hits you like waves. It recedes, sometimes for years, and then something happens and the tide comes rushing in again. 

Twenty-three years ago, there was nothing anyone could say to ease the ache or diminish the pain of Wedgwood. And today, there is nothing anyone can say to ease the ache or diminish the pain of Uvalde. Because mourning can’t be rushed. It requires us to sit in the pain, to feel the dirt and the ashes beneath us, to wear the grief like a heavy cloak. 

This mourning is unimaginably heartbreaking, but it is also holy. For I’ve found that it is in my times of deepest despair that the Lord has been the nearest. Time and time again, the Lord has proven that He meets us in our heartache. He isn’t remiss to lament with us in the dirt and our sackcloth. Way back in Genesis, God bent low and fashioned man from the ground. After speaking everything else into creation, He got his hands dirty for us. He still does that today. He sits with us in the ashes and the dirt. He comforts the anguished. He draws near to the broken-hearted. He covers the despairing with a peace that passes understanding. 

This weekend, as we honor the fallen on Memorial Day and we lament the tragedy in Uvalde, know that the Lord is near. He sees our tears. He hears our wails. And he sits with us in the dirt and the ashes. He is near to the broken-hearted. He is near to us.

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