GOOD GRIEF!
Living Through Seasons of Loss
Ecclesiastes 3:11, ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.’ (NIV)
October 24th, 2022
SUMMER: Rebirth!
Isaiah 55:8-9, ‘”For My thoughts about mercy are not your thoughts and My ways are different from yours. As high as the heavens are above the earth so My ways and My thoughts are higher than yours.’” (TPT)
Just like Spring transforms into Summer, so grief morphs into acceptance. I don’t know if it ever really stops hurting, maybe one just gets used to it. I don’t know that yet because I haven’t been at it long enough. For me now, there are definitely more good days and bad moments, than bad days and good moments, like there have been in the previous three seasons this past year. I can be in the midst of a project, even a sentence, an aisle at the grocery store, and at once find my face awash with tears. I can also giggle in the very next sigh as I recall pleasant memories, past declarations, a thought, a forgotten joke. I wonder if from now until forever there will remain a layer where memories and recollections of my dad exist which remains unhealed and raw and throbbing, like a fresh wound or a tender scar, like the vortex in our human bodies where blood pools and pain is ignited just beneath the surface of skin.
I am reminded that grief is mortal. No different than life, grief is fatal. We all must die; it is a fact of life. Grief too sustains a mortality rate which is unavoidable. Grief is malignant and dire and cancerous how it can eat a chunk out of happiness and intention and motivation. Grief can carve up a good day as soon as it arrests your thoughts first thing of a morning. I remember early on after my dad’s passing how there was that peaceful lull found in the first thirty seconds of awakening, the forgetfulness where bliss resides until a sudden recollection of the loss you just suffered is recalled. My beautiful day at once thrust into an entirely different realm as the realization would sink in that my dad was no longer.
I learned grief can wear many faces also and have multiple personalities. It made me crazy. One grief-stricken moment can be imbibed with fatigue and silence, weighted down with a heaviness much like being buried in concrete, sinking in quicksand. An ultra-swift about-face immediately becomes invasive and impatient and rambunctious. On many days, I couldn’t keep up with me. Sometimes neither could anyone else. Compassion can soar now having understood what others might be suffering through, but woe can become a new wardrobe also you climb into each day as your get ready to face what lies ahead. ‘Poor me!’ I found became a common sentiment. ‘You still have your (loved one); I no longer do.’ The concept weighed me down and I had to have a pointed conversation with myself on several occasions to not hold my loss against someone else who hadn’t been there yet. Grief is greedy, I decided above all else, and it sets you apart, like an outcast, if you allow it. Remember that common theme about how you can be in a crowd and still feel lonely? Grief is exclusive.
But, just as Winter turns to Spring, and we can expect changes in the weather and in our behavior, so Spring transforms to Summer, and all the many months of grieving gives birth to life, renewal and new beginnings. GOOD GRIEF! Remember, great is His faithfulness. His mercies are new every morning. He desires for His children to make their way through the bereavement of loss, but to not stay stuck there; rather, come on through to the other side and find Him patiently waiting to offer a new day, a brand-new start.
Lamentations 3:20-26, ‘I will remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I will call to mind, and therefore, I have hope. Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness! I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for Him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.’ (NIV)
Isaiah 55:10-11, ‘”As the snow and rain that fall from heaven do not return until they have accomplished their purpose, soaking the earth and causing it to sprout with new life, providing seed to sow and bread to eat, so also will be the Word that I speak; it does not return to Me unfilled. My Word performs My purpose and fulfills the mission I sent it out to accomplish.”’ (TPT)
