“Sigh!”
Sunday afternoon, when I felt myself drawing in a deep breath and slowly releasing it for the umpteenth time, I realized that sighs truly have become my go-to expression of grief.
I am not sure when I became such an expert at sighing quietly and simply moving on, but the past 23 months since our son’s death have definitely helped hone my sighing skills. I literally find myself committing this breathing tactic several times daily.
And Mother’s Day was evidently a high-sigh day for me.
The truth is that no mother is prepared to navigate that special time of the year with one or more of her children absent.
Granted, I have no doubt that my son Chris is safe in the arms of his (and my) Savior, Jesus Christ. But let’s be really real for a moment. Chris is NOT here with me at this moment, and he has not been for almost two years. Those are the facts, and they are not changing until I head Home or until 1 Thessalonians 4:16 is fulfilled with the Lord Himself descending from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God.
This means that I am an earthbound momma without one of her sons here on earth – on Mother’s Day.
“Sigh!”
Yep, I sighed all day long on Sunday! Really big, deep sighs, if the truth be told. Even when I tried my best not to sigh.
Actually, I think it was my inability to stop sighing that made me wonder if sighs were ever mentioned in the Bible. They were. In fact, I saw multiple uses of the word throughout the Old and New Testaments, and I was intrigued.
So, I began to research the Scriptures to learn who sighed, as well as when and where they did so, because I really was interested to know what the Bible had to teach me about sighs. I started with the good ol’ Strong’s Concordance, searching for the Hebrew version of sigh, its pronunciation, and its ancient, biblical definition.
“Sigh!”
Hearing the scholarly Old Testament pronunciation of the word literally made me sigh because I could hear its meaning as plain as day, just in the way it was spoken aloud.
That particular pronunciation actually conveyed its verbal definition: to groan (in pain or grief), to moan, to groan, to lament in distress, or to mourn. Yep, “anah” is what my continual sighs express.
So, here’s the thing: I have come to a point in this grief journey where I realize that it is pointless to try and share my grieving heart because the human psyche can only handle so much. Most people – though they may love me deeply and have compassion for me, and though they loved Chris as well – simply cannot find the right words or actions to express that concern and compassion. It is overwhelming and tiring for my loved ones.
“Sigh!”
I get it; I really do. I felt the same for most of my life – until I experienced a grief that was deeper and different from any other loss I had ever known – including all but one of our six parents/stepparents.
It is just not a natural part of the progression of life for a parent to mourn the death of a child. That kind of loss is not grieving over the past or over our familial history. It is grieving over our future, the one in which our children would have buried us, instead of us burying a son.
“Sigh!”
But then, as I studied the Bible Sunday night, I saw something absolutely amazing. Jesus Christ, the perfect, spotless, sinless Son of God, was recorded to have sighed at least twice in the Book of Mark.
In one instance, Mark 7:32-35, Jesus sighed as he healed a deaf man:
And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.
A chapter later in Mark 8:11-12, after miraculously feeding a multitude with practically nothing, Jesus sighed when the Pharisees tried to trick him:
And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.
Now, I am not a genius or a biblical scholar, but I know sadness when I hear it, even in the form of a sigh.
Jesus was fully God yet fully man, and in both of these passages, one concerning sickness and the other concerning sin, it must have been so humanly hard to see the creations He loved so much in such sad, hopeless conditions. Above all others, He completely understood the eternal hopelessness of mankind.
But Jesus was and is and always will be hope.
So, what did “Hope” do in both cases? He sighed and then acted. He acted with total faith in His Father.
But make no mistake!
He loved those evil, scheming Pharisees every bit as much as he loved that deaf man – and every bit as much as He loves us. Yet, the deaf man had a different need than the religious leaders of the day – a different need than you or me.
And in each situation, Jesus moved and continues to move according to faith in His Father.
“Sigh!”
So, here I am! Once again, the choice is mine: Do I trust in Him, knowing all that He has done for me in the past and everything He promises to do in His Word? Or … do I wait for another sign?
Like Jesus, I choose to sigh, and in doing so, I release all the grief that frail humanity brings, and then immediately, I draw in another breath – the very Breath of Life.
“Sigh!”
And with each sigh, there He is again – my precious, faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
