How To Survive the Wait When You’re Also Mourning
There’s a side of waiting that touches the rawness of grief. We’re impatient, we’ll joke, but many of the things we’re waiting for aren’t the sort of thing you really laugh off.
We’re waiting for clarity on a big decision.
Something to work out that hasn’t. Perhaps won’t.
Something to be repaired, redeemed, restored.
An apology.
Acknowledgment.
Forgiveness.
Justice.
Closure.
A yes we’ve worked for, prayed for, pined for.
The right person.
The right job.
The right open door.
The next milestone.
The waiting is only the surface of the story—one slice of the picture. Where there’s sweet, there’s also a sprinkle of salty and a peppering of bitter. Hurts. Lies. Regret. Shame. Things that twist down into our minds, spiral us away from God.
It’s no wonder that “the Hebrew word for ‘wait’ and for ‘mourn’ is almost identical,” as Dr. Brian Simmons points out in the footnote on Matthew 5:4 in The Passion Translation. They’re intricately connected. Perhaps inseparable.
The Passion Translation uses the Hebrew translation in this verse, articulating the second Beatitude like this:
What delight comes to you as you wait upon the Lord! For you will find what you long for.
Matt. 5:4 TPT
You might be more familiar with this phrasing, from the NIV, which uses the common Greek translation, mourn:
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Matt. 5:4
It’s the promise that anchors us to a God whose heart breaks too. Who hurts too. Who mourns with us.
I can relate to Jennie Allen’s list in Nothing to Prove of things she hates: “suffering . . . the brokenness of this world . . . that one of my friends had a massive stroke and still can’t talk . . . that my son has eight-year-old friends in Rwanda who are living on the streets . . . the cancer that several of my friends are fighting . . . that children are abused . . . death” (pgs. 175-176)
“I hate it! All of it!” she writes.
And on the next line, three words I keep circling back to: “So does God” (p. 176).
That’s the kind of God we meet in Matthew 5:4—a God deeply grieved by the things that have yet to be redeemed.
Grief & Delight
In case you missed our discussion of the first Beatitude last week, The Passion Translation uses different openings to the Beautitudes, in place of the commonly used word blessed. This is due to it being translated from the Aramaic word toowayhon, which encompasses “great happiness, prosperity, abundant goodness, and delight!” (per Dr. Brian Simmons).
In Matthew 5:4 we find the word delight: “What delight comes to you as you wait upon the Lord!” (TPT). We’re not talking about knowing something in your head but not feeling it in your gut. Delight moves us. Reaches deep into our overthinking, our numbing out, our chin-uping. Rivets our attention. Elevates our gaze. Elicits heaven-turned praise.
How do we taste this sheet delight? We wait. Often while simultaneously carrying grief. But the key isn’t so much in the waiting as it is in how we wait.
Let’s turn to the latter part of our verse: “For you will find what you long for” (Matt. 5:4 TPT).
We wait with expectancy.
We wait knowing there is something coming next.
We wait, knowing God-planted longings have a God-written ending.
Rocks & Grapes
I’ve been listening to Chasing Vines by Beth Moore, and this nugget fascinates me: Soil that would appear most conducive to growth is detrimental to a grapevine. It will leaf and rapidly expand. But not produce grapes. In order for the vine to produce grapes it must fight rocks, weather, and for space. It must question whether it can even survive. In its angst, fruit is formed (my paraphrase).
The same is true for you and I, and it’s a timely reminder while we wait.
In His goodness, God gives us rocks that squeeze and crush us. Dry spells that leave us numb, cracked, and parched. Shears that prune us when life feels fine. And it’s not His hand against us, but for us.
Hard and honest prayers. Unexpected waiting. Painful noes, not-yets, and silence. Each are lined with grace and etched in kindness—reminders that God sees far beyond the slice of right now. That’s He’s preparing us to bear fruit we can’t even fathom. That’s He’s very GOOD in all of it.
In true like-God fashion, God often gives us what we want most deeply, even when we don’t know what to name it. Interestingly, the Aramaic word for comfort, nethbayoon, can mean “to see the face of what (or who) you long for,” according to Dr. Brian Simmons in a footnote on verse 4. He further states in the footnote that the Greek translation is “They shall be comforted.”
God is Comforter. Promise-Fulfiller. He empathizes and embraces. Sees us and grieves with us. And He both initiates and satisfies God-directed longing.
Sometimes He gives us a taste of His glory at a time when we’re flourishing. We find Him in gentle ripples stretched along a mountain stream. Toes buried in sand on a sunrise-lit beach. A newborn snuggled in the curve of your neck. A God-hug sent via another person.
But I’ve found my thinnest places**—the places where the space between heaven and earth is practically non-existent—are in the grief and groan and planting yourself face down on the floor. In the ache of longing for God over and before His answers.
I wonder if this is what Jesus meant. That He is the ultimate reward of everything we’re waiting for. That whether He says yes or no on this side of heaven, we have Him. The One who delights in us even while we’re still learning that He is our greatest delight.
Let’s Pray.
Jesus, I pray for the one who feels overlooked. She’s been waiting a long, long time, and she wonders if you hear her. If you care. I know You do. Would You show her?
I pray for the one annoyed by a delay. It feels unfair. Would You show her too that You know and You care. That Your plan is ridiculously good. That there’s grace in Your timeline.
I pray for all of us, that as we wait, we would trust others to walk with us. That we’d lean into God’s embrace and also draw others with us. That we’d share how we’re learning to delight in God and where we’re finding Him.
** Jennifer Dukes Lee talks of thin places in her new guided journal, Stuff I’d Only Tell God. It’s one of my favorite prompts in her journal, and she describes it like this:
Thin places are physical locations where the veil between heaven and earth seems very thin and porous. Here, you sense that you are in the middle of a sacred, transcendent place. You can breathe again. God is very near.
These are my thin places
p. 106
Check out my book recommendation of Stuff I’d Only Tell God to discover more about Jennifer’s journal, why I’m obsessed with it, more of my favorite prompts, and some of my own filled-in pages. Also, if you’re listening in real-time, I’m giving away a copy of Stuff I’d Only Tell God, and you can enter the giveaway through the end of the day (EST) June 12.
Just a friend over here in your corner,
Missional Neighboring 101
This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Download your FREE sneak peek today! Also, get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors.
P.S. Did you know that The Uncommon Normal is also available as a podcast? Tune in to Apple Podcasts or Spotify to listen!
