Brief, we're actually devaluing the relationship that we have with someone. I remember doing a military funeral one time, a memorial ceremony one time. And it's the best illustration I can think of for what's going on here in this story. Uniformed men and women, warriors, weeping, coming up to me after the ceremony, me walking away from that interaction with wet shoulders. It's hard to capture the power of public mourning. Think of your own experience of 9/11, or the assassination of JFK, or anything like that — the Challenger explosion. When we come together and mourn, when we express our feelings in real ways, with our friends, with our comrades, with the public, there is a deeper level of healing that is available than when we go it alone.
And in a room this size, of course, there are many of us that would be grieving for all kinds of reasons — loss of friends, loss of loved ones, loss of — God forbid — children, or jobs, or whatever the case may be. And our job as believers is to do what David and his men do: to weep with those who weep, to publicly be okay in that experience. We need to be so much more comfortable with that. That's one of the reasons we have laments once a month. It trains our hearts to be okay in that negative emotion space. It's a beautiful thing.
And I would just say pastorally, if you are finding yourself in one of those seasons and you're walking through grief for whatever reason, don't do it alone. You know, David had these 600 warriors with him, and, you know, it's unlikely that we'll have that many at our beck and call. And yet, just having a few would make such a difference — to be able to truly express how you feel, and to not have someone else saying, "That's too much, and I need to step away," or "I need to make you feel better right now," and just to be able to weep with you.