with the lens of grief

Yesterday about half way through the drive to Maryland to celebrate the life of my nephew, I turned off the radio. As I began to have conversation with the Lord about the hard day that was ahead, the verse, "Jesus wept" came to me.  I have thought about that verse over the years and there are many things I have been informed about...it is the shortest verse in scripture, there was heart felt emotion Jesus had in grief along side his good friends Martha and Mary, and more.  Before looking at the scripture today, I had a thought about Jesus being in the present moment with the people that were grieving.  

I reread the account this morning. Now there is a new view for me of the possible "solutions" to that highly emotional life circumstance that we are able to read and reread. 

I had not picked up on something that has me thinking even more...."When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him,and he was deeply troubled.
They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”
Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance."

On each side of the shortest verse is an emotion that I have done my best to avoid most of my life: anger.

Hummm and wow.  

Through life experiences the past few years, I recognize that there is healthy anger that is part of grief.  Although I have ideas, I do not know exactly what the anger was connected to that Jesus had in this circumstance. What I know is that Jesus, who I am continually being transformed into and who never sinned, displayed his emotions which included anger.I also know that Jesus didn't hold on to the anger but he allowed it, felt it, displayed it.

As I think about how Jesus lived in the present moment with those emotions, it opens a door of questions for me as: When I am angry will I allow it, feel it and display it, and not hold on to it?

With this, I am living in the present allowing the stages of grief to take place....