Have you ever been to the “Oak of Weeping?” That is what Allon Bakuth means. Near Bethel, Deborah died. She was Rebekah’s nurse. Likely, she was the lady who cared for Jacob and Esau when they were little. They buried her beneath the tree and called it the Oak of Weeping. Before that it was just an oak. I have been to the Oak of Weeping. Have you?
In this veil of tears, the losses of life add up. Victoria Harrison once said to me, “Not all grief is the same.” Some grief comes as a relief after a long and difficult illness. We hate to see our loved ones suffer. Other losses take our breath away. This week, our church family will experience both of those kinds of grief.
People matter. They all matter. But some of our relationships go so far back, it is hard to imagine the loss. The death of parents is like that. We call people who lose their parents orphans. I spoke with a couple in the sixties who just lost the last of their parents. They called themselves orphans. When we lose a spouse we are called widows or widowers. But we don’t have a name for people who lose a child. Years after he and his wife lost their daughter Laure Lue, John Claypool remembered a childhood lesson that the proper response to a gift, even when it is taken away, is gratitude. This is so true, and so hard to put into practice.
Sunday, one of my friends who lost her father told how she had lost her mom six years ago, her son three years ago, and now her dad. New grief connects through unseen capillaries and nerves to old grief. Sometimes like a sciatica of the soul it awakens and we throb with pain. Where shall we go to weep? Jacob had an “Oak of weeping,” near Bethel. Right after they wept, he encountered God. Even if we don’t have an Oak, we can always go to our God. His house is in walking distance from our souls. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart.
