Genesis 45

He couldn’t hold it anymore. He told everyone to leave the room. And then Joseph wept so loudly that the Egyptians could hear it through the walls.

I am Joseph. Is my father still living?

The brothers couldn’t answer him. They were terrified.

And Joseph said: don’t be distressed. Don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me. God sent me ahead of you to save lives.

That reframe. In the middle of his own tears. The clarity of someone who had had thirteen years to sit with the worst thing that had happened to him and arrive at something that wasn’t bitterness.

That’s not cheap forgiveness. That’s not pretending it didn’t hurt. Joseph wept loud enough for people in the next room to hear. The grief was real. And the theological clarity was also real. Both at the same time.

I’ve needed to find that both at the same time. The grief and the trust in God’s sovereignty. Not instead of each other. Together.