Cocoon of Sorrow

Journal Entry, March 24, 2021

Life and Lent has me thinking this week about sorrow. The kind that sweats drops of blood during an anguished prayer, or weeps for months on end because your child lies in a coffin riddled with hate-filled bullets. For others, the unclenching grip of addiction that drives shock waves through family lines, or the worst kind of betrayal that turns once lovers into predator and his prey.

It is easy to give up hope in the middle of unspeakable sorrow.

Sorrow sparked lament arises from the ashes of moments, or seasons, where we have uncovered “profound disorientation to life.” (Rah Soong-Chan) We questions God. We question each other. And we question the truths we once held dear.

In opposition to most of our wishes, God’s redemption upon suffering and sorrow is not to eliminate it from our lives, at least not on this side of heaven. God’s redemptive act is to use sorrow for our benefit.

Lament drives us to Jesus; namely, Jesus weeping in the Garden. Jesus betrayed by Judas, and then by Peter and the other ten. Jesus bloodied, mocked and crowned with thorns. Jesus, suffocating on a cross, forsaken even by his Father.

The result of our sin-clad world is that we will sometimes weep. Yet in our weeping, God time and again nestles us into His safe cocoon, where sorrow is communion and death is transformation.

Cocooned with Jesus in sorrow and suffering, kingdom living begins to make a little more sense. A world that will hurt, but cocooning grace will heal.

Knowing this, will I still question God in moments of great suffering? Yes, I think so. But I find deep rivers of hope in knowing God is my greatest good, so this cocoon built for suffering souls is for my benefit, and yours.

“I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death” Phil 3:10