emotional pain (In loving memory of William James Knechtel)

Emotions are hard for me to deal with. I would say by most standards people as well as myself would not label me an emotional man. Most of my life I have not had a terrible amount of emotional baggage to deal with. I come from a family that loves and supports me, I have a terrific wife, and for the most part God has blessed me greatly in my life. So my question is this? How does a 27 year old deal with death? I had never been confronted with the pain that follows the death of a loved one because it had been largely absent from my life. I had lost grandparents, but that is part of a natural life cycle. Grandparents get old and they die, not to be harsh and callous, but I believe this is a reality we have all come to terms with. My grandparents lived long lives and for that I am thankful. I am desperately seeking to know how I deal with the death of a son all while being called by God to deal with death on a regular basis in the life of my congregation. I know that life as a country pastor will not always be like this, but to watch two people be completely robbed of life by cancer, to officiate a funeral for a 28 year old, and to do this all while losing our son. I am not trying to write this to earn sympathy points. I am probably writing this mostly because I find it therapeutic, but what do you do with the flood of emotions? How do you handle the fact that most days I would prefer to lay in the fetal position and cry because I don't have to answers to the emotions I am feeling? What do I do when I am at walmart and I see terrible parenting that makes me cry for the world we are living in?I think the only answer lies in Jesus Christ, but at the same time it is not that Jesus is some great consumer product that fixes me. It is more like the process of building a great piece of art. Not that I am any Sistene Chapel, but the fact is that God's greatest work is never immediate. This is why it is so perplexing to me that people believe that emotional healing should somehow be immediate. I believe this must be somehow influenced by a cultural belief that the avoidance of pain is somehow the highest good. The Bible and Jesus Christ blast this as nothing but a load of crap. Jesus makes it clear that in order to follow Him that each person must take up their cross in order to follow Him. This is a radical dying to self, dying to the strong human desire to avoid pain. It is not a matter of us avoiding pain, but it is a matter of us finding a way for our pain and emotions to be God glorifying. So my prayer is not God fix me, but God help to dwell in this state of brokeness, pain, and emotionalism as long as you see fit that I might be most effective at glorifying you. That's what life comes down to. If God uses my emotions and my pain in order to see a hurting world through His eyes then is it not all worth it? If God helps me see bad parenting the way He sees it, what if God gives me such a heart for this lost and broken world that I no longer accept the normal paradigms of pastor but instead become the man that He has created me to be, then what then. What if God uses each of these painful experiences, each of these emotionals journeys through the valley of death to show me that it is not only my heart that breaks, but also His heart. I don't want to pretend to be okay just because people can point out promises in the Bible. I know the Bible is the truth, but at the same time you don't point a suicidal person to the fact that Judas hung himself. I think the most comforting passages I have found are in Job when his friends came and sat with him and said nothing. The other most comforting passage that exists is "Jesus wept." This speaks volumes about greiving, death, sadness, and mourning. Jesus did not pretend to be something He was not. Jesus cried when Lazarus died. God cried. God has felt the pain of death in every way we experience that pain. God does not tell people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or that all things work for the good of those who love God. God the creator of the universe wept. That is more powerful than anything anyone could ever say or do. Perhaps, all I want is someone to validate my tears. Maybe I want to validate my tears. I cry for a stillborn son, a mother's life cut short by cancer, and a friend that had his humor robbed by disease, but most of all my prayer is that I cry because God cries. Jesus wept and I believe Jesus weeps with me today.