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 12th, 2022
WINTER: the Dying Season
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)
The day after my dad passed away (now a year ago), I didn’t think I’d be able to function ever again. We simply floated. You would think the heavy blanket of grief I felt I was buried beneath would have kept me tethered. Instead, I drifted; my emotions caught out at sea in a tempestuous storm, drowning, being pulled under in wave after wave of despair. Yet, at the very same time, a peace that surpasses all understanding guided each of us as we made arrangements, shared memories and stood shoulder to shoulder in extreme sadness and incredulity. What? How? Why? But all those silly one-word questions had one very simple answer. Time. While we were really caught in one of the many stages of grief—this one being ‘unbelief’—we also had all the answers we needed right before us.
Anyone can play the game called, ‘What If?’ but it really is quite senseless. God’s Word assures us that He alone knows the number of days we are to live, that there is not one thing we can do to add another breath to our existence. Job 14:5 (NIV) says, ‘A person’s days are determined; You have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.’ I began to see how God’s timing was impeccable; it was timely that the Lord called my dad home to be with Him at the very moment He did. I don’t believe now there is one thing we could have done to extend his life, and in hindsight, nor would I have wanted to. His assignment on this earth was finished and he received an invitation to go Home. I suddenly began to picture my dad sitting at Jesus’ feet, exalting and worshipping Him face to face, hanging on every word He spoke much like he had while on this earth, and I realized why would I want him to leave that to come back here with us? The truth of the matter is, I wouldn’t. Even if a person were able to make that happen, which we are not, why would we want that? How selfish that would make me if my need for one more day with my dad denied him even one day with God. That leant perspective to my grieving, gave acceptance where refusal had been winning. I felt like I had drawn a lucky ticket of understanding suddenly that I so desperately needed when I began to see it through my dad’s eyes instead of my own. I saw 20/20 on that day.
The days dripped with sorrow even though my perspective changed. The clouds wept, the air seeped sadness. I think the world was grieving my dad’s passing too. I am sure there were pretty fall days, autumn afternoons filled with warmth and color, but all I felt was a chill in the air and life became drab. I lived in black and white. I wondered what it felt like to lose someone you loved so much on a bright sunny hot summer afternoon. Seemed to me like all death should happen on a colorless and cold day while the world wailed and the hours passing by whimpered. Seemed fitting. It reminded me agony had to be anemic and ashen, washed out, emaciated. The persona of grief couldn’t possibly be fat and well-nourished as it had nothing but tears to feast on. It certainly isn’t bright and cheerful, plump with ecstasy and excitement. No, grief had to look the part—don’t you agree?—like the grim reaper, weathered, faceless, thin, gaunt, starved for life. Grey became the color of my grief.
I also noticed we all journeyed through it differently. I learned with grief the process is varied for everyone. Some need to talk, incessant recollections of time spent, surmounting exclamations of fine details others might rather forget, hallowed references about the character and life of the person just passed. Others, like me, wanted to climb inside the hollow of incandescent memories. I wanted to trip on the radiance of my dad’s life, the brilliance so blinding from the heirloom legacy he left behind for me to hold in my heart. I recognize now, grief is a very private and personal exploration of one’s emotions. Grief is universal, like we previously discussed, but so very intimate and exclusive all the same.
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)
