Grief Garments

"So Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her, and the queen was deeply distressed. Then she sent garments to clothe Mordecai and take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept them.” Esther 4:4

I have never noticed until this morning that Queen Esther didn’t know why her Uncle Mordecai was so grief-stricken when she was told he was at the King’s gate in sackcloth. Scripture recorded that he was wailing…weeping…devastated…had replaced his normal appearance with grief garments. This was the man who raised her and guided her right into the palace as the King’s choice for a wife. When she heard her uncle was so undone, instead of going out to comfort him she sent a change of clothes by her maid. She didn’t want the specifics of his suffering, she wanted him to just be the old Mordecai. Now before we judge her too harshly, we must hold up our own royal mirrors and ask ourselves some tough questions.

Are we so isolated in our self-made kingdoms that we offer very little to others in their suffering? Do we depend on other people to intervene, so we won’t have to? Do we offer the superficial clothing to cover them instead of the supernatural God to carry them? And what about poor Mordecai? He knew an emotional scam when he saw one when his niece sent the garments of dismissiveness.

Grief is not an emotion that can be rushed or hushed. It is a tree of suffering whose fruit continues to poison. It cannot be minimized, and certainly cannot be trivialized. ‘Offering a quick fix to a hurting person often can be more appealing than listening at length to the depth of his or her despair. Simply put, sometimes we’d simply rather fix it than hear it. Our human nature not only sets us up for selfishness but to feel uncomfortable and incompetent when faced with someone who needs more than we have.’ The Faithful, Beth Moore, p. 91. Most of the time our hurting friend or family member does not need our words, they need our presence. More times than not they need the Word of God spoken over them, not our words of empty platitudes to them.

When we know someone is hurting, the greatest gifts with which we can clothe them are compassion, sincerity and patience. We can understand that our walk with them during this time will not be a sprint but a slow healing stroll where time does not dictate the journey.