Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted
-Matthew 5:4

Here I was all ready to post something about funerals and how we can find comfort. I am sad to say that I have said goodbye to far too many friends already in my life. I have no doubt mourned. In time, I would say I have found comfort. Yet that is not what my study of Matthew 5:4 was about. It’s about mourning and, in some way, things that have died. However this spotlight is internal and not external. In each of the resources that I read, there is another kind of mourning that Jesus might have been referring to.

When I was 14, I started working in a shoe store. I made $27 a week and saved every penny of it. By the time I was 15 a neighbor and I had agreed that when I was 16, I would purchase the 1971 Mach 1 Mustang that was sitting in his backyard. It was a classic and I couldn’t wait. Then one day I had a little “fender bender” in the church parking lot with my parents car. Did I mention I was STILL only 15? Did I mention the other car I hit was only 2 weeks old? Thankfully we settled out of court but bye-bye bank account, bye-bye Mach 1. I still “mourn” whenever I see one of those cars.

I think my parents rejoiced when the Mach 1 deal fell through. Not because I wasn’t getting it, but because it meant they could sleep at night. That car was more than any 16 year old could handle. I couldn’t even handle the church parking lot, let alone what was the definition of a muscle car! While I mourn the loss of that car, I think deep down I know it is what was best for me. While that dream died, I find comfort in knowing how God turned that loss into so much more. I see the whole story now.

What I learned in this passage is that mourning can include those times in our lives when we don’t get what we so desperately want. Think of it as those times when God says “no” to our prayers. We can mourn a job we didn’t get, a relationship that didn’t work out, old friendships, our sinful nature or an area of sin that we have justified and God won’t honor. When we reflect on those things, we are amazed to know what we know now. We even find comfort in knowing it didn’t go how we had planned. We see it through Gods plan and not our own.  1971 Mach 1 Mustang’s included.

Tomorrow: Blessed are the Meek