Blessed are the Heartbroken

Blessed are the Heartbroken

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”[1]

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”[2]

As I write these words, it is the week after Easter. In the days preceding what we now celebrate as Easter, the Bible records a lot of heartbreak – people mourning and weeping over the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Even though Jesus warned his followers how his life on earth would end, the stark reality caught them off-guard. Earlier in the story of Jesus’ life, the Bible provides an example of Jesus weeping over the death of Lazarus (who he then brought back to life). My children and I still find ourselves in mourning over the passing of my wife and their mother nine months ago. Heartbreak is an inescapable condition of being human. Whenever we dare to love another, which requires a degree of vulnerability, we set ourselves up for heartbreak. We know this; and yet we continue to love and give ourselves over to others by allowing them intimate space in our lives. The choice is probably not whether to fall in love with another because we actually seem to have little control over whether we do or not. The choice is about how fully we surrender ourselves to experience joy knowing that unavoidably included within that joy will be heartbreak.

In Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes, it is those who mourn who find comfort, as if mourning and finding comfort are inextricably linked. In the Blessings and Woes, the ones who laugh are the ones who also weep. Are we being taught that we cannot laugh without also weeping, or that we cannot be comforted without first having our hearts broken? I think that is exactly the lesson, at least in part. It is the nature of emotions that they oscillate up and down, often in equal measure. Like the pendulum on an old grandfather clock, the length of travel to the left equals the length of travel to the right. Hard as we try, we cannot have emotions that travel only in pleasant directions any more than we can have a pendulum that only swings to the right. Indeed, it is the swinging in one direction that powers the swinging in the other. Over the course of a lifetime, I suspect our pleasant and unpleasant emotions even out.

Which brings up an interesting point: could we live our lives in such a way that our emotions would not swing back and forth? And if we could, would we? Would that be a desirable way to live? Would we be willing to give up our times of joy in fellowship with others in order to save ourselves the grief of heartbreak when that fellowship ends? Perhaps in our times of deepest grief we might briefly feel that way, but overall I believe few of us would make such a trade. In fact, I do not think we are capable of making such a decision. Most of us have an irresistible urge toward experiencing intimacy with others, whether that closeness is with one other person or many.

As has been stated by many authors before me, joy is not an emotion. Joy is a state of being. Those who attain joy are joyful regardless of the circumstances of their lives. Their emotions swing up and down like they do for the rest of us, but their emotional swings occur within the larger context of joy. Joyful people know and remember that the story of our lives is not defined by a single event or even by a series of events, pleasant or unpleasant. They have an unshakable belief that the overall trajectory of life is good. Life is always moving toward the new and improved, even as we find our physical bodies declining. When we believe God is up to something good and that the part of us that is connected to the Divine is included within it, we can endure tremendous amounts of suffering and still feel joy.

The optimism of a joyful person is not the false optimism of those preaching a prosperity gospel, nor of one trying to remain blissfully unaware of the deep suffering around them. The optimism of a joyful person is summarized in Romans 8:28: All things work together for good for those who believe… It is more than wishful thinking or blind positivity. Joy is rooted in our soul, and it comes directly from God, assuring us with a wisdom beyond words that today’s labor brings about the new birth of tomorrow. We will be changed; we will be reborn, as will everyone and everything around us. If we look back 100 years in time we can hardly believe how far we’ve come. Joy looks ahead 100 years and knows we are heading someplace even better. Today is only a transition.

This is the 7^thin a series titled Blessedness and Woe.Life Notes are my explorations into mysteries that interest me. They are invitations for readers to explore more deeply into life’s mysteries. Engage with me or explore contemplative spiritual direction at ghildenbrand@outlook.com.

---

[1] Matthew 5:4

[2] Luke 6:21b