June 15, Mourning

Today’s reading: Psalms 71-75

“When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you”   - Psalm 73:21-22.

The psalmist made an honest confession of an emotional breakdown over some issue that caused him to mourn and grieve. Some people do not allow themselves to mourn or fail to understand the importance of role of mourning. They also may not realize mourning isn’t just appropriate over the loss of a loved one, but can serve a purpose after any loss—job, property, the potential of what could have been if someone else had not messed up, or if the mourner himself had not messed up. It is emotionally painful and messy to mourn, but absolutely necessary if the mourner is to get to the other side of healing and emotional health. Paul instructed believers about mourning when he wrote: “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). You can feel free to mourn without despair because the situation you are mourning is in God’s hands and you have hope. You do have hope don’t you, or have you lost it in some situation? Have you resisted mourning, thinking it is somehow not proper behavior for a believer? Will you give yourself permission to mourn today until the season of mourning ends.