How Could One Man Bear All the Sorrows of the World?
When you want to console a grieving heart
What would you say to a person who has just lost a loved one? This seems to be the question I ask myself every time I write on my social media account about grief. In this account, people from all kinds of beliefs express their thoughts and deepest feelings about the pain of losing a loved one. From their posts, I can feel anguish, anxiety and despair.
Frankly speaking, I often feel helpless in offering words of consolation and hope. I know that even the most well-crafted words can deepen another person’s pain for the simple fact that none of those words can bring their loved ones back to life.
Deep within me, I know that the only hope we can hold on to is our hope in God. But how do you even begin to speak about it in a world that doubts His very existence? A word of hope to me can be a word of foolishness to another. A sincere intention to help may be perceived as mockery, judgment or even condemnation.
What doesn’t change, however, is the fact that we all share this pain. No one is exempt from death. Our own, and our loved one’s passing.
Death is the final question everyone must answer. Death will determine how we choose to view the meaning of everything in life.
Just reading all those posts have made me realize the true state of humanity, our helplessness in the face of death. No matter how hard we may try, we can’t comfort every person who is grieving. That is something only God can do. For how could one man bear all the sorrows of the world?
It is no wonder then how God, prompted by compassion, came down from heaven to save us all. Even if Jesus needed to undergo such an excruciating kind of death, He offered His very life so that He can give us hope.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus tells us.
He is the way when we can’t see a way. He is the truth we’ve all been seeking. And He is the life that can overcome the deepest pains of death.
I pray that somehow, this truth may find its way to all the grieving hearts out there that need to find consolation, strength and hope.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” - John 3:16, WEBBE
“And can it be that in a world so full and busy the loss of one creature makes a void so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up!”
— Charles Dickens
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