One of the primary things I have learned in my experience with grief, is that grief can be as wicked as cancer. It can cause significant damage in one’s life both internally, spiritually and emotionally, and externally, physically and relationally.
I have seen people with strong religious backgrounds abandon their faith in anger and disappointment with God after losing a loved one. I have seen others emotionally crippled with bitterness, depression, despair even to the point of suicide. I have seen and experienced physical health declines through extreme weight loss or weight gain, anxiety, fatigue, headaches.
I have seem divorces occur as your closest relationships are put under tremendous stress to bear with one another.
Grief has a tendency to isolate its victims often decaying relationships. Family an friends may not be able to understand why those grieving have withdrawn from them and from life. They may not have the strength or patience to deal with the mood swings, the depression, the bitterness over the extended months and years.
Grief is a long dark, isolated journey with many common pitfalls and obstacles along its way. There are no hidden or secret passages to bypass it or speed up the journey. It does not matter how many losses one experiences, the journey does not become easier with the more people you lose. You may begin to recognize some of the common pitfalls and obstacles but they are just as difficult to endure. Depending on the type of death one is dealing with, the grief process can become compounded with other issues, fairness, justice, suddenness, unexpectedness. etc.
The long journey through grief cannot be prepared for in advance. In cases of long term illness, where the upcoming separation is foreseen and all goodbyes have been made, there is nothing like the reality of the weight and emptiness of grief once it sets in.
Many seeking immediate relief from the pain of grief seek comfort in all the wrong places. Relief is sought through withdrawal, though distraction in burying oneself in work or hobbies, through drugs, through depression, through promiscuous relationships and even through death.
God would have us to be comforted at a time when it feels there is no comfort to be had in this world and when we feel all the world is miserable comforters as Job did. The pain of grief cannot be avoided. It cannot be eliminated. Like any acute pain, it can only be managed. It can be reduced to a level where you are able to cope with it over the long term. It does become less constant, less intense over time, but the pain never completely goes away. Over time it will come and go in waves, that you will begin to recognize and sometimes even welcome as old recognizable friend who comes to visit and sit beside you when you are alone at times and just as abruptly leaves you to live.
How does one survive grief? How does one draw on all the heavenly comforts that God has made available and deplete them? How does one even grow stronger through grief and flourish instead of diminish through it?
I would like to share some lessons and writings I have learned in my own journey and some truths that have soothed me that I am calling Mourning Meds on this blog. To everything there is a time and a season, and this may or may not be the right time for you to read these particular blog post categories. If your grief is fresh, any words or attempts to sooth may inflict pain. It is not my attempt to limit your grief. One must grieve and grieve to the fullest for you have loved and you are separated from the one you love and they are separated from you. It is good and right to grieve. But I would protect you if I could in your grief from all the dangers and pitfalls that could increase it and cause long term damage to yourself and to your loved ones making your journey even more painful then it already is.
Psalms 84 talks about the pilgrimage to the temple to worship but the travelers had to pass through the deserts of the Valley of Baka to get there. Some had turned this desert into a place of springs. They dug deep and built wells along the way in various places along the path. At these wells other travelers could be strengthened and refreshed as they crossed the same desert. On their return trips, through the Valley of Baka, for it is a well worn path we all travel frequently as we age, these wells would refresh them and strengthen them as they passed through again.
That is the purpose of my sharing a few writings on this blog. To be a Spring in the desert. A living stream to sustain life my own and any one else who may be passing by. To share a cup of water. My hope is to soothe you for just a moment on your journey through understanding and truth. Grief challenges our perspective on life, the purpose and meaning of it. Grief blinds us and causes us to grope for eternal truths we can hold on to and use as sticks to test the ground and find our way through with. Without the truth of God’s word to guide us, we stumble blindly forward, always tripping and never fully understanding why. With God’s word, we may still be quite blind sometimes by the darkness of our grief, but we are able to make our way forward, we are able to come out of it and to rescue and bring others out of it with us. More then anything, we are able to live through it, flourish instead of whither. Not right away but in the end. Instead of destroying us, God uses it to bring us life, hope, fellowship and even joy. Joy that our separation is not eternal but only temporary through the work of Christ. These are the truths we hold on to. Our candles in the dark.
