Make it Matter Monday!! Blessed are those who mourn...

This week in Sunday School we talked about the second Beatitude - "blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted".  If you are mourning it just means that you are really sad....but this verse isn't saying that God wants us to be sad.
Our Sunday School teacher told us that a long time ago when the Bible was written they didn't speak English so it was mostly written in Greek. So the Greek word used in this beatitude is 'pantheo'...which is a funny sounding word which can mean three things.
1) Mourning here could mean regular sadness from everyday things....like when your friend says something mean about you, you get a bad mark in school or you fall off your bike and scape your knee. God cares about all these things and will be there for you when you're sad.
2) Mourning could be over social justice. We did a unit on that last year in school and social justice is when  we feel sad for people in the world who are treated unfairly and try and do something to make them feel better. We will be favoured by God when we try and improve unfair conditions in the world. Like when we sponsor a child, or we send supplies over to other countries who have gone through a terrible disaster like an earthquake.
3) It can mean Godly mourning. This one probably happens most often. Have you ever done something wrong and then felt really really bad about it? I sure have. One time when I was shopping with my mom I asked her to buy me some gum and she said I couldn't have it. But it was my favourite flavour and I wanted it really bad, so I put it in my pocked :( I felt SO bad later that night that I had to tell my mom. She told me that first thing in the morning we would go back to the store and I would have to apologize to the store manager and promise to pay for the gum out of my allowance. Then we prayed together and I told God how super sorry I was and I really meant it. After we prayed I felt so much better. I knew that God forgave me because I was really sorry.

So when we're sad in any of those ways, God will be there for us. No matter how big or small out problems are God wants us to be happy will be there to comfort us! He's so awesome!!

B!