It’s difficult to imagine in the midst of sorrow and tears that anything good can ever be waiting around the corner. When the tears run raw and hot and salty, and the sobs reach deep. It’s hard to imagine a smile will ever part our lips again.
But it does.
When the grief twists and squeezes our heart and our breath can’t find its steady rhythm between the pain. It’s hard to fathom that laughter will find its place in our world again.
But it does.
I lost a dear friend this week. Her life wasn’t nearly long enough and my heart aches at the cruelty and timing of death and how there’s no easy way to say goodbye. And I wince at the shattering left behind, of the lives held together by this one. How death delivers such a blow, and the heart longs to wish it away. To sleep and awake to find it was all a terrible dream.
I imagine those weeping beyond the tomb, when death delivered its final blow. When hearts yearned to turn back the clock and bask in His smile just one more time. How His laughter warmed and liberated and captivated.
I imagine the disbelief and hopelessness. The seeming end and the darkness and the silence. How the thought of leaving the tomb would be an acknowledgment that nothing good was ever going to come, and how truth was swallowed up with the rolling of the stone.
And how sleep between the sobs brought the only solace – if only for one brief moment. That when daylight peeked over the horizon and the first bird warbled its morning song on that third day – hope was dead.
But it wasn’t.
Because then I imagine that solitary space deep within the tomb. When the first gasp sent life flowing through the corpse of a Savior. How Father and Son communed as one, and love wrapped the world in grace. How the tears of such an unfathomable and fierce sacrifice were dried beneath the joy and celebration of risen life – Eternal life.
And I hear laughter in the stone walls.
Laughter of such magnitude that even the weightiest boulder could not withstand its thundering force. The kind of laughter that echoes from the east to the west and declares victory over every soul. The kind that brings a beating rhythm of hope to every earthly heart and stills the final pain of loss.
I imagine that laughter uniting the Father to the Son in a sweet eternal embrace of “It is Done.” So each life that leaves this earth can be united in the embrace of eternity. Where raw, hot tears never find a home and grief releases its grip to make way for the heart to beat strong and fresh and free.
Blessed are those who weep now for they shall laugh. Luke 6:21 Share on XAnd I thank Him for welcoming my friend.
I remind him how she clung to laughter and hope through the deepest pain. How she longed to bring every kin and stranger to the open tomb – to breathe in forgiveness and bask in the light of mercy. How she loved and lived for this one moment, this one final adventure.
In the stillness of my thoughts, He reminds me death is not the final destination, that weeping will not last…
and laughter always follows the tears.
“He will yet fill your mouth with laughter And your lips with shouting. ~Job 8:21
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