Grieving is Spiritual Warfare

Sarah the mother of Isaac danced through the gate, swinging the front door wide open and made herself at home on the couch. 

“There you are” I shouted from the kitchen. “Where on earth have you been?” 

“Sorry I’m so late. The celebration of life took longer than I expected.” 

“Celebration of life? Who died?” I asked.

“Oh nobody, I was grieving dead dreams. You know, what I thought my life was going to look like so that I could make space for what it is? I do that from time to time” she said as her aged lips pressed against the tea cup. 

I smiled at the way life with her seemed to be experienced in slow motion… unrushed with nowhere more important to be than on her face before her Lord. 

“Grieving is spiritual warfare” she said as she took a long inhale …. “but grieving alone… grieving alone is spiritual death…”

She shared with me about Matthew 26 and how it begins with a woman pouring oil on the head of Jesus. And after she’s ridiculed for it Jesus says “She has poured this oil on me to prepare my body for burial.” 

Then 24 verses later it says Jesus took James and John with him to pray and while he’s anguished and distressed He tells them “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

I sat there listening to her words with tears streaming down my cheeks… How had I not seen this before? That even Jesus intentionally grieved asking for others to keep watch with him. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that Grief is oil. And that if Jesus grieved covered by olive trees and dear friends in the garden of Gethsemane with the desperate cry of “Your will and not mine” then He’ll empower me to do the same. 

Did you know the Greek word that is usually translated as “mercy” is the word Eleos? It can also be translated from the root word meaning “oil that is poured out.” 

And if grief is oil, then what will happen when His all-consuming fire kisses it? An eruption of obedience perhaps? Could it be that the oil of grief sets the table for his mercy to redirect our eyes on what matters most? Him…