What I’ve learned About Grief

“I don’t want to be in the same place two years from now. I want to be better and further down the road, healed and moving toward my purpose.” I said that about two years ago after the sudden and tragic loss of our twenty year old daughter. My expectation was that “time heals all wounds.” Yet, many days, I feel like I’m doing worse – further behind than where I was when I made that statement. The reality is that our family has NO reference point for anything that we’re going through. Every day brings new challenges and revelations, many of which blow our old expectations out of the water.

I’ve learned a lot about grief and disappointment through this process, and every day I’m learning more. I’ve learned that you cannot put a timetable on it – it doesn’t work that way. Everyone processes disappointment differently, so you cannot compare one persons journey to another. I’ve also learned that a person’s “recovery” is directly correlated to the quality of the relationships that they have in their lives. We had friends and family that laid down their lives for days following our loss to love on us and serve us. They continue to do that two years later. I cannot imagine having to walk the last two years alone. I’m not sure I would have made it. So, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be a friend.

I’ve also learned I have a real issue with the phrase “moving on.” It says to me, “leave the past behind and get on with your life.” Unfortunately, after losing a loved one, that’s not ever possible – not even if I wanted it to be. I like the phrase “moving forward” better – it speaks to the truth of what should be happening. When we move forward, there is room to bring some things with you. Some of those things may be left on the roadside along the way, and some of them may become a permanent part of the journey, but the journey can still begin while making the decision as to what needs to be left behind. So many people are still sitting at the starting gate of their grief and disappointment because they are still struggling with sadness, discouragement, and possibly depression. What I’ve learned is that the journey should begin even though the pain hasn’t ended. I am not guaranteed a wonderful life. I’ve actually bargained for a cross, so the only guarantee is that I will have to carry it.

So, there will be storms. I was reminded that God did not calm the sea before calling Peter out of the boat. Peter stepped out anyway. Sometimes it’s the Jesus IN the storm that we need when our faith begins to fail.

I know we all want the wonderful and easy life that we feel we are promised when we decide to follow Jesus. But, that’s not what the promise is. In fact, we are promised persecution and disappointment and pain. It’s easy to be a “follower of Christ” when everything is going the way you expected. The real test of your commitment, however, is when things go violently wrong. It’s through the journey, and all the messy encounters and storms along the way, that we truly begin to know the God of the storms and get a sense of how real our commitment to His kingdom is. It’s when we begin to move forward in that revelation, that healing begins.

Until I made that discovery, recently I might add, I was constantly searching for “the end.” That magical place where the pain ended and my new life began. If I look really hard, my new life actually began the day my daughter died. It was a life born in pain, suffering, sorrow – and hope. Those things can and do coexist – if we allow them. Unfortunately, we don’t want them to coexist, so we try to choose one or the other and, in the process, we short-change our healing.

When I realized that I could move forward and still carry the grief and the hope, the hope began to grow and the grief began to fade. I suspect that the grief will never go away completely. There will always be triggers that cause the pain to blossom and bloom – triggers like her birthday, Father’s Day, and the day she passed out of this world and into eternity. Those days, however, will become events along the way and no longer an ever present part of the journey. Hope will one day take the reigns and lead the way.

I am excited about the future. I wish that my daughter was still a part of it, and that realization will always bring disappointment, sadness, and some pain, but God’s promises are always to bring light where there is darkness, hope where there is discouragement, and peace where there is chaos. He truly makes beauty from ashes. It simply requires that we start the journey even in the midst of our pain, grief, and trauma. Stay the course, and He will show you where to go.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18