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 28th, 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)
GOOD GRIEF! I have learned so much during these seasons I have recently wandered through. I don’t think I would have ever chosen this lesson in life for myself, but now having gone through it, I believe I am better equipped to help another person who finds themselves buried beneath the heavy blanket of grief. This I know for sure: I would not ever want to wrestle with the weight of grief on top of me without the hope of Jesus. He has made this—the loss of my dad who was one of my best friends—bearable. He has made this understandable. He has coped for me when I could not. He has shown me the silver lining of grief—that while my dad is absent from us, he is present and peaceful with the Lord, and how could I not want that for him, or for anyone, for that matter?! After all, that is the purpose of this life: to live well, to help others well and to finish well, and then receive the eternal reward of life after death with Christ. I also learned there are funny terms referring to death, one of those being the loss of someone. Lost? What a silly reference. I didn’t lose my dad. Not for one second. I have known all along where I will find him. He isn’t lost to me at all. Yet we say stuff like, ‘I’m so sorry you lost your (loved one).’ I am going to try to refrain from using that statement when someone I know suffers the passing of a loved one.
In the future, having walked this path, I believe I can encourage someone who has a loved one leave, to know God’s great compassion for him or her. I remember thinking how much more personal it made Jesus seem to me when I imagined Him standing outside the tomb of His best friend with tears streaming down His face, while He tried to console the family and wrestle with His own grief simultaneously. I was so bereft when my dad died rather suddenly although we had been preparing for some time, and yet I felt a responsibility to help my mom and others in our family who were anguished as well. I think in those moments, it changed my grief process, maybe waylaying it, placing it on a shelf in my heart or in a hidden compartment in my soul for safe-keeping and eventual grieving. Later, I would remove the vast emptiness I encountered buried deep inside, hold it, ponder it, unearth it. It was almost as if I were unwrapping a package found hidden someplace, and I didn’t know what to expect as I began unmooring it from its trappings. I learned we all grieve, and do so differently, but no matter what, it is inevitable, and there is a malignancy to bereavement. Even anger is found in the process of grief, and that is okay too.
I pictured John at the foot of the cross and felt the enormity of His forlornness as he watched Who he had put all his hope in take His final breath. I watched my dad take his final breath and I remember the raucous silence that thudded in my soul when I realized he was no longer going to be here with us, with me. I know Jesus understood the tears on my face and the memories pouring from my eyes and I know He wiped those tears away. I know He has comforted me, and He has been closer than a brother. I know that there is a prick to death that draws pain, much like blood comes after the wound, but it is nothing like the sting that would have been if Jesus had not overcome the eternal power of death and separation from God on behalf of mankind. Because of what Jesus accomplished at the Cross and the ransom He paid for me, I also know beyond a shadow of doubt and death, I will see my dad again and you will see your loved ones too. That is the undeserved gift of salvation and eternal life Jesus gives to humanity and it by far outweighs the heaviness of any blanket of grief you and I have been buried beneath!
Isaiah 40:28-31, ‘Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening? God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath. And he knows everything, inside and out. He energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts. For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall. But those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles; they run and don’t get tired; they walk and don’t lag behind.’ (MSG)
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)
