Casandra Martin

Grief is a difficult, strangling, heavy emotion. It sits on our chests like a weight, so dense that we feel like we won’t be able to take our next breath. While grief has common elements, everybody’s grief is unique. It takes on the dimensions and facets of the love that we shared with the person who is gone. When we grieve, our souls rebel against the hole that has suddenly been created in our hearts.

Watch the faces of the grieving, and we discover that grief is universal. We all grieve. Perhaps in different ways, with different customs, but the impact of grief rips at everyone’s heart regardless of age, nationality, gender, or culture. It doesn’t matter if you live in an industrialized, modern society or a third-world country, grief is real, present, and touches us in our most private, vulnerable places.

In thinking about grief, I keep coming back to one thought. Grief is evidence of God’s goodness. The universality of grief points to the truth that death was never God’s plan for our hearts. No matter how young, old, infirm, or healthy someone is, we fight against death. It leaves a hole in our hearts that we were never meant to experience. Grief testifies that our hearts were made for life, love, joy, and comfort. Grief, loneliness, pain, and brokenness are the consequences of sin.

“’O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?’

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 15:55-57

My Jesus Resolution today is to search for His goodness in my grief. Grief reminds me that I am not meant for this world. My home is somewhere else. The pain of grief is real and fresh, but the power of grief is tempered by the love poured out from the cross. The empty tomb isn’t just a historical fact. It shouts the truth about God’s good intention for my soul.

My son was hunched over the table filling out forms. Over and over, it asked for his ID number, Social Security number, driver’s license number, and registration number. He breathed in a sigh of frustration and said, “I’m only a number. No name. Just a number in the system.”

We live in a digitalized, codified world. Our identity is defined by numbers, dashes, and electronic impulses. It is easy to feel like we are lost in the maze of impersonal IDs, one more number stretching out in an endless line. We are one more face in the crowd, one more employee, one more customer, one more student, one more patient, one more in the next-in-line countdown, each blurring into the next until we feel invisible.

Next time you feel unseen, unappreciated, unnoticed, or ignored wrap the words of Jesus around your heart. He has a numbering system too. But His numbering doesn’t impersonalize us or count us as just one in a crowd. It reveals how well we are known. Jesus draws us close to His heart and reminds us, “But even the hairs on your head are all numbered.” (Matthew 10:30)

My Jesus Resolution today is to remember that I am numbered. Jesus counts the hairs on my head. He wants me to understand how intimately I am known, how much I am cherished, and how closely involved He is in my life. He sees me. He loves me. He knows me. He remembers my name. He watches my face. He listens to my voice. He bottles my tears. He longs for me to know that His love for me is personal, and that He is paying attention to my heartbeats, my breaths, and the number of my hairs.

My son broke the church. I walked by the back door and saw the pieces of the small, decorative church building lying on the table. I was so surprised. We have had the little church for years. It sits in a convenient spot near our back door. We hang keys on the steeple, which I think is appropriate because being a part of the church is key to looking like Jesus.

I looked at the pieces for days. Seeing a broken church is somehow heart-wrenching for me. My husband watched me finger the cracks, and gently whispered, “I think it can be fixed.” Pulling out the supplies, he positioned the pieces back into place. He applied adhesive, pressure, and a little bit of ingenuity. Now the church sits back in its spot, keys dangling, giving me new reason to hope.

The almost invisible cracks in my little church make me smile now. They remind me of me. We all come to Christ broken, shattered, and damaged. Sin breaks us, splintering our souls, fragmenting our hearts, and wrecking our lives. We try anxiously to fix things ourselves. Our patchwork jobs would be comical, if they weren’t so desperate.

Jesus steps in, gently whispering, “I can fix that.” Putting our hearts in His hands, He applies blood, grace, love, and hope to the pieces. Soon, we begin to take new shape. Stronger, joyful, and radiating with peace, we join with others whose lives testify that broken people can be mended. We are the church.

My Jesus Resolution today is to be thankful for fix-it jobs. Psalm 147:3 says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Today, I can take my broken pieces to God, trusting that He will put things back together in a way that will bring Him glory. Our scars are places that bear witness to the healing grace of Jesus. They tell a story about brokenness and redemption. The church is made up of broken people fixed by a Savior who offers hope to shattered hearts everywhere.