A Time to Grieve

The Bible says there is a time to mourn (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Life is difficult and death isn’t optional, so mourning can’t be avoided. I have learned a lot about grieving from my friends. When a person dies in our area, the immediate family wails, screams, and cries. All the emotion is so vivid. All the built up feelings we Westerners may stifle, the tribal people don’t hide. There are tears, and there are a lot of them. Then the community surrounds them and cries with them. You sit with the person mourning and hold their hand and cry. I have learned to see it as a beautiful expression of taking on another person’s burden. It is comforting to just be together. To remember and honor a life and to cry for how much you will miss them. This is done for several days. I started to see that they cry until they are all cried out. They cry until they are totally and utterly drained. Then after the mourning period, the only time you may see them cry again for that same deceased person is when they meet someone they haven’t yet cried with, even if months have gone by since the death. I have come to appreciate this part of their culture, and it brings Romans 12:15 to life for me: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”