How Hymns Help Me Gain Perspective On Grief – A Man’s Journey Through Grief, continued, #25
There is snow on the ground, the weather is cold, and I resist the urge to go for a walk outside. My flesh is lazy. “Dad”, my daughter said just the other day, “you need to keep walking.” Sigh. It is true.
So, after I completed my list of jobs in town, I drove to the community centre to walk around the track. It’s on the second floor above the hockey rink. I punched the elevator button and had a flashback. This is where Mary Helen and I used to come in the winter. I can see her punching that very button. And as I began my walk, images followed me around the circuit.
It has been a good week in that it has been almost without overt expressions of grief. I’ve been able to talk about her without tears. I’ve been slowly constructing a new life. I don’t know why the sense of loss should suddenly come upon me at the community centre. Of course, I never know why…or when. It’s just that, at times, the sense that she is not beside me is overwhelming.
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve tried to maintain a sense of perspective. I’ve reminded myself that I have been blessed, even though Mary Helen has been called home. I remind myself that some are suffering with cancer, some have lost a child, some have lost a spouse long before the three score years and ten they expected and some are living in war zones. I’m fortunate. We had so many good years. And she is rejoicing in heaven.
I began noticing something in many of the hymns I read in my morning devotions. It’s obvious really. Sorrow and loss is so universal its often expressed in our hymns. Here are a few examples.
Face to face with Christ, my Savior …
What rejoicing in His presence,
when are banished grief and pain
When the crooked ways are straightened
and the dark things shall be plain.
[Face to Face]
After the toil and the heat of the day,
After my troubles are past,
After the sorrows are taken away,
I shall see Jesus at last.
After the heartaches and sighing shall cease, …
[After]
Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share,
but our toil he doth richly repay….
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way…
[Trust And Obey]
There is a name I love to hear,
I love to sing its worth;
…It tells of One whose loving heart
can feel my deepest woes,
Who in my sorrow bears apart,
that none can bear below.
O, how I love Jesus….
[O How I Love Jesus]
Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to they God to order and provide;
In very change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heav’ly Friend
Thro’ thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
[Be Still My Soul]
We live in such an air-brushed society. Cheerful. Positive. Happy. True, the daily news tells about inflation, tragedy, murder, and war. But that’s out there in some one else’s life or across the ocean. Until our expectations of living “happily ever after” with the love our life crash into inevitable reality. Perhaps we—I mean I—need to pay more attention to the hymns I sing to gain a sense of perspective.
Down through the centuries grief and loss have been part of the human condition. Many of the hymn writers have written their experiences into their poetry. Such knowledge does not eradicate my sense of loss, but it does help me realize I am one among a great throng. And it reminds me how sorrowing saints down through the ages have been led to Jesus, the great sorrow-bearer. No wonder they sing, “Oh, how I love Jesus”. No wonder, they look forward to heaven so much.
It is my prayer that I will draw closer and closer to Jesus and that someone reading this soliloquy may be helped.
