Aundi’s Meditation

My meditation for the week as I process the stress of being pregnant while working while virtually schooling while supporting my dear boy with special needs while trying to love my husband well while—oh yeah!—there’s still a pandemic going on (phew, that’s a lot. I need to be kinder to myself for feeling the weight of all those things). From the incredible Aundi Kolber:

“It’s possible that my favorite example of... Jesus is in His interactions with His friends Mary and Martha after their brother, Lazarus, died. The shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35, esv), sums up Jesus’ response as they and others grieved near Lazarus’s tomb.
Jesus absolutely knew what was about to happen: Even though His friend had died, He would be raising him back to life momentarily. But—don’t miss this—Jesus still wept. What kind of God is this?

His friends had just lost their dear brother—of course they wept. Yet Jesus didn’t shame them; instead, He honored and entered into their present grief and validated their humanity.
When Jesus lamented with Mary and Martha, He was allowing them to process their emotions. Joining them in grief, Jesus knew that as they processed their feelings, they would tap into their bodies’ natural ability to integrate difficult experiences. And as the Creator of their neurobiological structures, I suspect He even recognized that their minds and bodies needed to do this so the pain didn’t become a form of trauma.

Notice that God-in-the-flesh did not rush Mary and Martha along but instead provided empathy and patience. This is a model for us as we seek to pay compassionate attention to our own experiences.

It might sound strange to most folks, but Jesus’ weeping is one of my favorite things to talk about.
This is the Jesus I know and serve and give my life to; the One who holds the redemption story in one hand and the fragility of our human emotions in the other—and loves them both.”