Mourning

These are just some watercolor pencil quick drafts. More self-therapy than art.

I've observed a tendency in myself and in others that sometimes we don't believe that it is okay to not be okay. We focus so much on how Christ heals that we forget He also feels. I've seen how this often turns us to become stationary or become angry - at God for not healing or at ourselves for not being healed.

I think it is important to remember that Christ not only heals, but He mourns with those that mourn (Mosiah 18:9). It is okay to not be okay. It is okay to address feelings. Because how you feel really matters. Why? Remember the incredible price He paid in order to know exactly what those feelings were like. He died for many reasons. He suffered for many more. He needed both death and suffering to live today for the purpose He desires. Today, He lives to feel with you (Hymn 136).

I am extremely grateful for Christ. For his comforting, enabling, healing, and cleansing power which I can access because He performed the Atonement. I am also grateful that He mourns with me, and each of us, in a way that perhaps no one else can. Because He felt it exactly. He didn't feel it exactly so he could be done with it 2000 years ago. He felt it so he could feel with me today.

As a side note, my five-year-old niece saw the first picture which I drew several days and several realizations before the second. There's no way I can capture how cute this was, but try and imagine that she can't say her "r"s yet.

"She's sad... Is she made out of dirt?"
"Yes."
"That's weird."