Jesus Wept

I just got back home from moving my oldest daughter into her college dorm. It really is amazing how we as mothers bear our children in our womb for 9 months, then we take care of them and raise them into adulthood, and before you know it they are gone. I really don’t want to miss or dismiss this moment in time. As I look back on her life and all the ups and downs she has had over the years, I at the same time am looking ahead at what awaits her in the future, both the near future and beyond. It is for sure a mix of emotions, from sadness to hopeful expectation, from fear to full confidence, and all of this wrapped up in a tremendous amount of gratitude to God for His great love for her and each one of us.

It was after her graduation that I began preparing for this moment. I was not all that intentional, but deep down I think I always knew that I needed to shift my relationship with her from being her caretaker and authority figure to being her friend and mentor. With this realization, I started to do a lot more listening and a lot less talking, a lot more accepting and a lot less criticizing, and probably most importantly a lot more loving her and who she is now and a lot less loving the person I wanted her to be. This summer has been a gentle unfolding of our relationship, much like a flower blooming in slow motion.

These past couple days, as we packed, traveled, unpacked, and moved in, it has been physically exhausting to say the least. During this time I have really tried to keep my heart and mind with the Lord, so that He could show me and teach me the depths of His love and wisdom. I have been reflecting a bit back on my own life, when my parents moved me into the exact same dorm over 26 years ago. I remember the feeling when they first left. It’s a feeling I will never forget. I also remember what all I learned my first year of college. I remember the hard things I went through. I remember the bad choices I made and the lessons I learned. I also remember the Lord and how he captured my heart that first year of college. While I was doing my best job running away from Him, He was seeking me out. He left the 99 others to come find me and since He did, I have never been the same.

All this remembering can lead a mother to be scared or nervous about her own daughter’s experience. It may even lead us to try to remove all the obstacles that we can so that our daughter will not have to go through anything hard. The truth is that there is something much deeper at work here and it would be wrong for me to interfere. The Lord God desires to capture the heart of my little girl. He desires this so much more than I could ever even imagine. He loves her and has loved her every moment of her existence. His ways are gentle and loving, although it also means that at times we will go through pain and sorrow. The cross is ever before us in this life. We can try to avoid it or ignore it, but it will always be presented to us as an option to grab ahold of and accept so that we will grow in love.

As I look back at my own first year of college experience, I can see now what God was doing all along. Everything was an attempt to lead me back to Him and I am so very grateful for His mercy and love. As I ponder my daughter’s first year of college experience, I can’t help but to be heartbroken at the reality that she is going to hurt, she is going to be rejected, she is going to make mistakes and fail at times, she is going to get homesick and feel alone, she is going to have many crosses presented to her along the way. I realize a bit of how Mary felt as the mother of Jesus and I find myself uniting my heart to hers in these days.

What gives me hope is the resurrection that lies ahead for my daughter. I believe with all my heart that the Lord will fulfill His promises in and through her. I have faith that the Lord will show her how to love more deeply than ever before, and that as He stretches her, which can be very painful at times, it will open up new places in her heart that only He can fill with His love. This is the way of the Lord. He has no other way than the cross and resurrection. This is the path of love that each one of us is on.

I fully expect there to be tears in these next few days and weeks, and I pray that I am able to live them as deeply as God desires. The shortest verse in the Gospel is one that I closely relate to right now, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). This was just after Jesus arrived at the tomb of his friend Lazarus who had died three days prior. Yes, Jesus wept because He was sad that His friend died and sad because Martha and Mary were sad, but Jesus also knew and saw in that moment what it took for Lazarus to be redeemed. Nothing God does is wasted. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead for the sake of the witnesses to the miracle, to show them that He (God) was powerful enough to raise someone from the dead, but Jesus also did it for the sake of Lazarus. For whatever reason, Lazarus needed to physically die and then be raised from the dead in order to be redeemed. Not all of us need this type of miracle in our lives, but we can be sure that Lazarus did.

In much of the same way, I weep now for my daughter, knowing and seeing that she is going to have to go through some tough times. This reality breaks my heart, just as it broke the heart of Jesus for His friend Lazarus, and just as it pierced the heart of Mary to see her Son die upon the cross. Jesus knew He would not make it to Bethany in time to prevent Lazarus’ death, it was part of God’s will and so it was to be done. And yet the humanity of Jesus still wept when Lazarus died, even though He had full knowledge of the resurrection that lay ahead.

Just as Jesus wept for Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, He also wept for me back when I was in college, and He weeps today for my daughter. He weeps for us because He does not desire for us to suffer in and of itself. He desires for us to be resurrected. This is the goal and it is the hope we all await. Jesus has compassion for what we are going through because of the hurt it causes us, but He also has the perspective of knowing how it will all work out in the end. From this perspective I forge ahead in my ministry of praying for my daughter.

Lord, I give this child to you.
I hand her back to you and pray
That you will capture her heart this year.
Amen.

*Image: James Tissot, Jesus Wept