Jeremiah

Typically one finds themselves crying in a classroom due to either a bad grade or some other school related problem. Maybe some people cry in classrooms due to some subject matter covered that sparks something deep inside and the emotions rush forth and manifest as tears. I was in my Hebrew Bible class and I started to cry. Nothing noticeable. The professor didn't notice and neither did my friends. Small little tears that stay in your eyes were blurring my vision. I felt the small rush of heat that accompanies my tears.
As we read over the laments in the book of Jeremiah I found myself constantly thinking about August of 2008. I remember the numbness I felt towards God when I found out my brother died. I can still recall the feeling of my body, the feeling in my hands and toes when I heard the words from my father's mouth.
It is Jeremiah who calls out to the Lord. “I ate your words” Jeremiah accuses and yet I’m left here in despair. This is how I felt. In the moments and minutes and hours after my brother’s death sunk in. I lived in the world of deep joy and praise of God. Attending church every Sunday and realizing that God is a God who does great things in people’s lives. Although bad things happen, it was always something that I could either brush away or a question I just avoided.
Yet when my brother died it was a fast decent into numbing coldness. An empty place within my soul-my nephesh-my entire being. So in class as I read the words of Jeremiah, I felt a connection like never before to words in the Bible. These were not happy words, they were not words to comfort me, but finally they were words that encompassed my feeling, my emotions fully.
I wondered why I was never shown this verse in Jeremiah. I met with my pastor just once after my brother died. Yet never did she offer this as a verse that might comfort me. There is not blaming in this thought. I tried to keep things together emotionally. I think that people misunderstood that for me having moved on and/or accepted my brother’s death. Of course I accept it. There is nothing I can do to get him back. He is dead, there is no way I can refute that fact. But it doesn’t mean that I can move into the realm of acceptance. This comes only after dealing with all my emotions concerning his death. I’m still bouncing around the stages of grief. Somedays I’m angry, and others sad. Although sad doesn’t seem to fully cover the emotion I feel on that day. Sad is too simple. Sad to me in a throw away word. On days when I say I’m sad, I feel like there is a weight pressing against my chest, a numbness in my limbs and an overall feeling of tiredness, when I’m not actually tired. And some days I just want to be alone. And other days I feel happy.
Yet now that I’ve found the laments of Jeremiah, my feels have been unleashed. I have been quiet during the past week. I’ve been thinking. I know have a whole part of the Bible that I was never introduced to before and I’m loving it. I take comfort in Jeremiah’s words of anguish because they are so much like my own.