Don’t be scared when grief settles in.

If there is one piece of advice I can share with someone who is grieving, it’s this:

The worst thing you can do is wait for your grief to pass.

 

Just months after the week I lost both my grandfather and my father, I was careening toward an emotional break. 

Looking back, I’m not sure where I ever came up with the notion that grief is tidy and immediately transcendent. Or that the world was counting on me to just get on with my life.

When the sun would set and my house grew still each evening. When there was finally nothing else to do to avoid reality and nothing to distract myself with, another me would emerge. The me that felt like she was floating because she believed she was filled with nothing. It felt, more than ever, as if the tethers that bound me to this world were thread thin.

Exasperated with my inability to function in any normal capacity, I wondered why, when I was armed with optimism and a faith-centered outlook, my sorrow hadn’t yet turned a corner. I tried to force a peace with what happened. I was lying to myself.

No matter how much I tried, though, my days were spent slogging through silent misery. The more I tried to correct course and steer the ship, the more scattered and chaotic everything felt. 

What I thought I was doing was carrying on. What I was actually doing was trying my hardest not to face my grief. I was hunkering down, waiting for the storm to pass. When in actuality, grief is not a storm. It doesn’t spin and howl, and then move on. 

It settles in.

It’s like a volcanic eruption that changes the course and landscape of everything forever. It’s like a quiet cosmic shift. You have to find a way to live in a world that’s been leveled. In a world that does not entirely, if at all, resemble the one you knew before.

Signs of grief will always be there. You have to find a way to not allow grief and bitterness to have the final say over what really matters. Over what you do next.

Two years later, I still find myself startled from being triggered by seemingly insignificant things. I now live near the hospital my father died in. Most of the time, I drive past that brick and glass building, and don’t think about that day. 

Other times, I remember the sterile hospital smell and cold tile floor like I’m standing in one of the hallways. I remember that day and try not to go crazy. I try not to stay there. 

For so long,  I clung to the memory of my life before. I desperately wanted to stay there, in the place before everything spun out of control. I thought moving on meant I was forgetting and letting go of the people I loved. That I was ceding some ground to tragedy.

I tried to compartmentalize everything. I fought to keep my grief contained so it wouldn’t swallow everything. It felt like a blackness that would taint everything. Grief was the name I wouldn’t dare speak.

And if I could separate everything then I didn’t risk losing everything.

It wasn’t until I realized grief went by other names that my guard could come down. It was another form of love, trapped love, and something I couldn’t avoid or I would lose so much that mattered to me. I realized grief didn’t dwarf any of the joy or diminish the good things I had to hold on to.

If anything, it magnified them.

When I let my walls down and grief enter into my broken parts, when I faced it, I finally realized its true purpose. Because there are some things grief cannot touch. And those happen to be the most important things. Things worth fighting for and savoring. And they stand tall in the face of the bleakest sorrows we can imagine.

 It allows me even now to save myself when my heart breaks over and over again.

If there was one piece of advice I could give to the grieving person, it would be that the worst thing you can do for yourself is to wait for your grief to pass. For you to put your grief away.

Grief is terrifying. It can feel like some unnamed specter that always hovers close. And it does. Grief is now what reminds me of all that I have, all that I once had.

And when I finally asked for its real name, its name wasn’t grief.

It was hope.

 

 

 

 

Nailing the sin (and burden) of comparison to the cross

Of all the burdens we carry as women, I would say one of the greatest of these would be the affliction habit of comparison. 

We do it to ourselves, and at times it’s like we don’t even know we are doing it.

We snark at social media posts by other women working direct sales, “ignoring” their event invites and not responding to their messages. We sneer at the woman who is not ashamed to put herself out there with her talents or hobbies. We judge the mother who works and spends long hours away from her children, but we say we don’t understand the mother who still co-sleeps with her five year old. We hate the pulled-together mom waiting at school drop off, and yet we turn and wonder why the mother who is always late and disorganized can’t get herself together.

Worse than that. We discount ourselves before we have even reached the starting line. We say we could never be like the woman to the left or right of us. That God’s promise of redemption is not for us, it couldn’t possibly cover OUR sin. We say that we are too anxious, too weak-minded, too useless for His mighty kingdom.

We think we are failing in every facet of our lives. 

I have always thought the command to not compare our lot to another’s plays out in two ways.

First, do not compare what you seemingly don’t have to the person who does possess it.

Second, try not to stack the things you actually DO posses against the person who doesn’t in an effort to diminish or discount them. 

Both actions plant seeds of dissension, envy, greed and self-doubt in our hearts toward others. And boy, we can SO do both of those things at the same time, and not even bat an eye.

One of the most worthwhile tasks I have ever had to work toward was how to genuinely be supportive of the women around me. And to realize that the woman to the left or right of me was not my competition, but instead my comrade.

These women have ended up being the people who most inspire me as they serve their God, love their children, create and build and encourage, and confound expectations of what women of God – and in general – are supposed to be.

We are evolving in this post “Me- too” culture.

The last year has been both a reckoning and an eruption for women and men. And it was only when women stood shoulder to shoulder together and behind one another in solidarity that the tidal wave of truth finally swelled past the point of containment.

Women, do we not see how powerful we are when we are together? And how we are even more powerful when we give a leg up to the women around us??

When we lay down our arms and instead link arms and share burdens with each other and help one other to stand even when our knees quake. 

The truth is that the enemy of this world, who prowls like a lion but whispers lies as smooth as butter, is seeking to devour us all, knows that when we are together, we are unstoppable. 

Which is why he would rather see us fighting one another for scraps than standing arm in arm in the battle for our lives. 

I stand here today, guilty as any other of discounting, forgetting and stacking myself against sisters in Christ instead of welcoming them with open arms. 

 

And I commit myself to these things from here on out:

 

1.) To go forth and make disciples

Women were paramount to Christ’s ministry, both before His death and after. He cherished the women around Him. And He did not bestow on them a calling different than their male counterparts.

He called us all into a life of evangelism and service to others. He beseeched us to love others as ourselves. As we have been loved.

I commit myself to making disciples of all women I meet. I will pray with you. I will cry with you. I will love you as a spiritual sister. I will wipe clean the mascara running down your cheeks as you spill tears of brokenness and frustration. I will welcome you into my messy home, and will listen to what ails your heart over a cup of hot coffee. 

I will affirm you. I will admonish you. And I will cherish you in the great work that we are striving toward.

2.) I will love you

My heart sometimes as full as my head is empty. But I will make room for you. 

My old, rugged heart will beat with yours as we try to figure this broken world out together. Sometimes, that means stopping over with a casserole for dinner because I know you just can’t worry about one more thing. Sometimes, that means praying for you in the early hours of the morning.

I will make myself a safe place for you where you are held in confidence. I will remember that there are women who are hurting and broken, and will treat them gently and with respect.

I will love you in the most Godly way I know.

Sometimes, that will mean affirming you even when you don’t feel worthwhile, and sometimes that will mean honest words from a friend as I remind you that you are a daughter of the most high king. Because sometimes, love is saying or doing the difficult or uncomfortable thing because it is the right thing.

3.) I will live gospel-consciously.

I will not forget the marginalized and overlooked women around me. Women who are walking a different path and through a different set of circumstances and trials than me.

I will remember that sometimes, the most jaded and cynical around me are often the ones who hurt the most. 

I promise to not assume that every person’s life looks exactly like mine. I promise to never presume that things that may have been easy for me have been easy for you.

I promise to remember all of my sisters of color, social standing and familial status, and to seek justice and acceptance for them.

I will do my best to love you as Christ has loved me, with a love that covers a multitude of sin and blemishes, and keeps on churning against the odds. 

I promise to remind you that you are seen, wanted and adored by the same Almighty God who churns the oceans and sets the stars in the heavens. And that we are heavenly patriots and sisters first, and above all else. I will remember that though we may be different, we are tied together by the scarlet thread of Christ which pierces through all flesh and manmade divides.

4.) I will have words of affirmation and support

I will be excited for you when you succeed. And I will encourage you even when you might not. 

I will believe you when you share your hurts with me. I will not make excuses for a miscarriage of justice, and the poor words or harmful actions of another.

I will nudge you toward Godly forgiveness when applicable, and accept you when you are grieving or angry.

I will remind you that it is God who counts and guides our steps. I will remind you that failure can be used to guide you. To edify you. That sometimes, failing is where we can gain knowledge of the truth more than the success. I promise, though, to still believe that the promises of God are for you even when things don’t work out the way we wanted them to. 

 

5.) I will learn from you

I know so very little, and I will remind myself of that fact constantly. 

I will learn from your struggles, and accept your wisdom and wise counsel. I will understand that you will see my sins and struggles in ways that I cannot, and will trust you when you offer correction and reproof. 

I will treat your kernels of wisdom and exhortation as nuggets of gold. I will always strive to remember that faithful are the words of a friend, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

And I will remember that you are my friend.

Good grief – for when you are shaken.

Blackbird, singing in the dead of night,

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see,

All your life…

I remember writing about my grief in the immediate months after my dad passed away.

I sat tapping on a keyboard as I waited to turn a corner.

I was expecting to arrive with fresh introspection at some sort of crossroads where I would stop hurting, and start living again without feeling like every centimeter of me was being swallowed.

I sat waiting to learn something about the consuming hurt my life revolved around. I wanted to feel like I had stood the course so that I could tell my story of how I had held on all by myself.

Mostly, I hoped for the kind of grief I could control.

Eventually, I settled for feeling like it meant something. Anything.

It was only recently I realized that the expectation life would only get worse had mostly ceased; the self-loathing I had aggregated over the last year seemed to subside.

It comes and goes on goes on certain days.

One moment I can talk openly about my father. About how much he loved the way that I added extra vowel sounds to words when I was a child, or crinkled my forehead when I pouted. How he taught me how to play gin rummy, and didn’t mind a bit when I eventually started winning more than him.

The next instance, I can barely choke out that he liked to play electric guitar way too loudly while he drank a beer in our family room. Or how on Sundays, he always took an afternoon nap…but it was okay to sneak into his room and try to pry his eye lids open. 

This is grief.

And there is no arrival in grief. 

There is, however, a realization that pain and joy can coexist.

At the end of the runway of grief is a launch pad of rebirth if we have the eyes to see it.

After the shaking and sifting, there are things to be found. 

Every silent prayer I have ever prayed to grow more holy, to have faith that withstands earthquakes and darkness came roaring back to me in the months after. Prayers whispered while in bed staring at the ceiling or from a church pew on a Sunday came to remind me the way the ocean bursts against the rocks. The same way the birds land in the trees. 

Jarring but then gently.

A hard reminder, and a patient one.

For a while, I couldn’t tell if He held me anchored in the harbor while the storm erupted, or if He saved me from its throes while I was lost on the darkest of oceans.

I was, for sure, in some remote place.

Alone, as grief can only be borne.

Was I held or was I rescued while He sifted my life like wheat?

Or was it both?

 

“For the mountains may be removed,

and the hills may shake,

But my lovingkindness will not be removed from you,

And My covenant of peace will not be shaken…”

 

He tells us of His shaking.

How He will turn every inch of darkness within us into light like we have never seen.

How our lives will be sifted in times of testing. 

He will remove things that have no place within us so that what is eternal and true will remain. And not just that they would remain with us – that they would stand tall within us when all else has been swallowed by the earth that gives way from beneath us.

He will shake the shame we carry and comfort ourselves with. The shame that tells us that we could never hope to be anything more than failure wrapped in flesh and bones that turn to dust.

He will shake the darkness that dots our own hearts like black ink dots paper.

The shame that tells us that we aren’t loved when the world is burning down around us.

The belief that we belong to no one. 

He will shake the false sense of superiority and security that we have with a walk down a cold hospital hallway where we see what end awaits us all if we are left to our own devices.

He will sober us with the reminder that we have no promise in tomorrow in our own strength.

He will remove the will in us to pursue our visions and desires.

He will help us see that the glory we had sought was actually our own version of self-aggrandization that fades like applause.

He will remove our ability to compartmentalize Him. 

He will allow us to see ourselves for what we really are.

He will let our face be pressed into the dust, and He will show us how to praise Him even there.

He will remind us that our savior is intimately acquainted with grief and sorrow and death. 

He will have His way with us.

This is good grief.

 

 

“For you have not come to what may be touched,

a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest..
But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem…

and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,

and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven,

and to God, the judge of all…

and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,

and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant,

and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken,

and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,

 for our God is a consuming fire.”

 

God does not afflict us for His own amusement or out of indifference. Our God uses pain and affliction to spin tales of redemption. Our joy and our failings and sorrow are all connected in a tapestry of sanctification.

Our God allows rebirth in places where the vine was severed. Our God is beside those who suffer, who are in the haze of grief. He is with those who grow faint. Our God says that the world around us may be consumed in fire but we will not be touched.

Singed, but not consumed.

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you,

that he might sift you like wheat,

but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

Luke 21:31-32

And He says press on. Wait for Him to move. Like the watchmen wait for the dawn.

Expect Him. Turn back and look for him.

And ready yourselves for the resurrection.

 

And when you turn again, you will see.