Leaning into Grief

I haven’t written in awhile but I’ve had a lot swimming around in my heart regarding grief. First of all, March was the most difficult month so far in this 8 month journey. I can’t even begin to describe the depths of agony that we have gone through. I would go on my 3-mile prayer walk and be doubled in half, in gut wrenching sobs as I tried to see clear enough through  my tears to not walk into the middle of the road or walk off the side of a bridge.

Bethany described life right now as being “very sad” while Nathaniel’s grief has been a constant ache of sorrow that doesn’t change much but never goes away. Yet, I also feel that we have rounded some type of bend in March that is rather difficult to explain but I know that something major has changed. For one thing, I am realizing that this pain is not going to go away any time soon. But I have also learned that the presence of sorrow does not mean an absence of joy. The presence of pain also does not mean that I cannot go on with my life and begin again. In the past 8  months I would experience moments, sometimes a few days at a time, of happiness and great relief. It was at those times that I thought I was ready to begin again and discover what the next 30 years or so of my life in Christ was to look like. Yet, those times of happiness and relief from grief were short lived.

During all this time I’ve been looking for the relief of pain as sort of a cosmic nod of the head that it was time for me to move onward. What I am beginning to realize is that in the great loss of my husband, the pain is always going to be there to one degree or another. If I sit around waiting on the pain to go away in order to begin my life again, I will be waiting in my misery for a very long time. The lesson I have learned is that it is possible to live a new life in Christ with an enormous amount of sorrow in my heart. I can live again, love again, and laugh again while there is still a gaping hole in my heart from the loss of my dear Gary. Living without pain is not my goal but living as a servant unto the Lord is what my life is about. I am realizing that it is impossible to run from this pain therefore, in order to live I need to lean into the pain and not fight it. I can lean into it and still move forward. I can lean into it and still laugh, love and rejoice. I can lean into my pain of incredible loss while discovering newness of life.

On the other hand, I do not mean a numb acceptance of depression. That is the furthest thing from my mind. What I am talking about is the very real and vibrant awareness of the depths of the ache in my heart yet no longer fighting it but learning to rejoice and move forward within it. Within the pain…..that is a very new concept for me. My whole goal from the beginning of this journey was to get THROUGH the agony. And now I am realizing that the path laid before me is not to get through the pain but to lean into it and allow my life in Christ to be changed by it. I think this is what the author of “Things Unseen” was trying to communicate but I was too deep into my grief and sorrow to really grasp his message. I think the point of all of this is realizing that yes, I can live again but the pain is still going to be there. It will be there if I remarry, it will be there if I get a wonderful home, a secure job, and a lovely town to live in. The pain will be there no matter what I do. The only thing that could take away this pain of grief is to have my dear husband resurrected from his grave of ashes buried under the lemon tree in the back yard of our house in Taxco.

So here we are 8 months into our journey of grief and now instead of trying so hard to get THROUGH this journey we are realizing that we are in this journey for life. My life and the lives of my children have been forever changed, marred, hurt, and wounded. In the words of Sense and Sensibility “they just lost their father, their lives will never be the same.” There’s no way to just “GET THROUGH” to the other side of grief but to learn to live our life in Christ within our grief and allow the pain to take us constantly to the cross of Christ and into the arms of our savior. Yes, I am ready to begin again. I am ready to see what the next 30 years of my life in Christ will look like. But yes, the grip of sorrow and the sting of death is ever present in our lives. We are no longer trying to get through this journey but now learning to live within our pain, lean into it and see the work of Christ and the suffering and victory of His cross in the midst of our sorrow.