Hi James and Pera,
My heart goes out to you guys. Situation like yours are truly tragic, especially when children are involved, and it's obvious that both of you are loving men who want to do what's right for your families. My prayers are with you both.
Jesus sermon on the mount comes to mind. These are truly mysterious words of Jesus, because they go against everything that is carnal in us:
Blessed are those who mourn...Matthew 5:4
I have read that and thought, "Excuse me?" When you look up how "blessed" is defined, here is what it says:
* supremely blessed, fortunate, well-off, happy
I am sure neither of you would say you feel like this right now...but Jesus assures us that you are blessed in your mourning....why?
...for they shall be comforted.Matthew 5:4
There is something about situations like these in which Jesus can reach down and comfort us in the deepest depths of our souls. So you ask, how can he comfort?
Are you not the greatest comfort to others, when they know you yourself have been there, completely understand what they are going through, and so are not alone in their pain?
Are you not the greatest comfort to someone when you identify with their pain?
If you are in emotional pain, so is your Creator. Not just in the sense that He's been there, done that....but He IS there, right there with you, in the depths of your pain...in fact, it is my deepest sense that any of our pain is no match for the suffering of our Father.
I do not believe that it is the Father's ultimate will that we should suffer through broken relationships, but it is His temporary will, as it is necessary to get us to where we are going and to teach us by experience the very depths of God...who is suffering at present through more broken relationships than our Father??
The brokeness you feel for your wives and children in the suffering they go through is only the slightest inkling of what a purely loving Creator feels for His creation, and in this, is there not comfort?
When I have been in pain, my truest friends have been those who cried with me, and in this there is a strange kind of comfort, because we all carry the baggage of a million hurts as we struggle through this life. And so there is unity and purity, there at that place of mourning....a place of comfort. God is there with you, not just as a Father patting you on the shoulder saying "there, there", but as a friend saying, "I weep with you, your pain is mine..."
So, if we look down at the face of our Savior, who is washing OUR feet, and who is weeping over the brokenness of OUR relationship with Him, our hearts can go out to Him...if we can see that His pain is greater than ours...would not this move our hearts to....want to comfort Him...and this changes our hearts...melts our hearts...causes us to want to give all of our hearts to Him, who is suffering...
I think that is why Jesus says:
Matthew 25:35-40
For I was hungry and you gave ME food, I was thirsty and you gave ME drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed ME
I was naked and you clothed ME, I was sick and you visited ME, I was in prison and you came to ME.
...Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to ME.To the carnal, it is a contradiction, to the spiritual it is poetry, to the heart it is comfort...
Much luv and respect to both of you,
Peace,
Diana