Grief…..it’s uncomfortable to talk about. We hide it behind closed doors. It refuses to follow a predictable pattern. It recedes for a time and then comes crashing back on a whim all its own.
The heart betrays the mind. Logic slips beyond our grasp. It’s messy, difficult to compartmentalize or even categorize.
The process of grief forces a single mindedness, yet permeates every facet of our lives.
For something so entirely intangible, it might be the heaviest thing we ever carry. We try to compare it to something……anything, and yet it can’t be quantified.
Grief is the ultimate paradox. It goes something like this: There is nothing physically wrong with me; I do not have a life-threatening disease…..yet I feel like my insides are ripping in two.
The heartache becomes the physical ache.
And because grief is no discriminator of persons, eventually no one escapes it- Dreams unmet, job loss, divorce, children unborn, family members gone too soon, severed relationships.
And if you are still reading this, then you are either curious why I’m talking about this…… or you know even more about this subject than I do.
If I may humbly speak to the latter, I have not known what most would consider the greatest grief- losing a spouse or a child, but we are by no means strangers.
And this kind of sorrow begs the question……
“Where is God in my grief?”
And it’s not a new question. Many a person’s faith has hung in the balance as a result of this very type of question.
Several years ago a friend of mine lost her best friend to cancer. My husband asked her this question……
“How’s your heart?”
And through the tears streaming down her face, she said, “No one has ever asked me that question before.”
“How’s your heart?”
What I don’t know about this subject would fill more space than my eyes can see.
What I do know is this……God knows your heart. He knows my heart. He knows my broken places. He knows the wounds I carry.
“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”
Grief may feel like a scarlet letter, or a secret badge we wear hidden on our person. It feels like more than we can carry…… but we are not called to carry it alone.
“Pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”
There’s an old adage that says, “Time heals all wounds.” I would submit to you that God created time and space. His sweet mercy trumps any supposed linear path I may be on.
He created me with this fragile heart and need for others. He created me to have joy. And he created me to feel pain. He created me with a deep need for Him that exceeds anything else that I could try to attain. And on the days that I need him the most….. are the days I will count him the closest.
“I am near to the broken hearted and I will save the crushed in spirit.”
When I sit at the feet of Jesus and let his breath become mine, when I cast my cares upon him, this is what I hear him say…….
My child, your burdens are not too heavy for me. There’s nothing I can’t heal and redeem. I love you with an everlasting love!!
My favorite psalmist David says it like this…..
“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness; that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.”
May today’s grief be tomorrow’s dancing!
– Suzi