To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. ~C.S. Lewis
Love hurts. It brings us joy, hope, and purpose but can also squeeze our hearts with so much pain we can’t even breathe…when it disappoints, breaks, or leaves. Why not run away and hide? Why even let it in? Somehow we are made for love, so we wither and die without it. Somehow we know deep in our hearts it is worth the pain even though there are times it doesn’t feel like it. So we keep on loving because it gives us life… and we keep moving forward when we’re in pain because we have to. How do we do it? How do we keep moving forward…how do we heal from loss…how do we keep loving…God…others…ourselves…even life, when we’ve experienced the pain of loss?
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” ~Ecclesiastes 3:1-2; 4
We often equate loss with death, but it is important to remember that there are many types of death…physical death…emotional death…mental death…spiritual death. These various forms of death come to us when we move away from a place called home, give up on a dream that seems unreachable, struggle with illness or unwanted changes in our bodies and minds, have a relationship we value break, lose our sense of safety, face our own death or the death of a loved one, lose a loved one to death. The truth is that we face many forms of loss throughout our lives – little losses and major losses. Each one is important because each one threatens to chip away at our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. Likewise, however, allowing ourselves to move through a healthy grieving process can serve to strengthen our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. And sometimes these scars from healed or healing wounds can make us stronger than before.
I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come?” ~Psalm 121:1
But how does that happen? How do we heal when we experience loss and pain…death and grief? We search and search for some kind of relief from the pain and hurt…something or someone to deliver us from the depths of grief and bring us strength and healing. Where do we turn…to community, isolation, another’s arms, food, drugs, alcohol, achievement, exercise, God?
“My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. The Lord will keep you from all evil, the Lord will keep your life. The Lord will keep you going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.” ~Psalm 121:1-2, 7-8
Perhaps the worst part of pain is that it threatens to take away our faith…our hope. Those of us who have experienced the gift of faith…of being able to see God’s presence in our lives and in the world…can often take this gift for granted. We take it for granted until we face a deep loss that shakes our faith and makes us wonder if God cares for us or if God is even there at all. This doubt forces us to choose…to choose whether to try to face this roller coaster world alone or with God. To choose whether to listen to the voices that tell us to rely on our own strength, to give in to fleeting pleasures, to cling to another person. Sometimes these things ease the pain. Sometimes they are tools for moving us forward. Often we find that, when used alone, they don’t give us long lasting strength and healing. Instead, might we choose to listen to the voices that remind us of our God who promises not to remove all pain but to walk with us? A God who slowly knits us back together until our wounds are scars of strength that hurt occasionally but do not take away our hope and love and faith.
“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff – they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” ~Psalm 23:4, 6
These scars become reminders that we have come through the valleys of life with God who is our loving shepherd. The one who guides us, strengthens us, protects us, feeds us, and, above all, accompanies us along this journey of life.
“When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” ~1 Corinthians 15:55
We mere mortals face death every day, but thanks be to God for Jesus Christ. When we are so broken by pain and self-concern that we push God’s healing love away, Jesus suffers death on the cross to reveal that God’s love will never leave us. When we feel like death has the final word, Jesus walks out of the tomb and carries us into new, abundant life to reveal that death and pain never win. In this life, God brings life out of the ashes. After physical death, God brings us into eternal life in Christ Jesus. Let us face change, death, pain with boldness – feeling what we need to feel, trusting the suffering servant Christ to walk with us, and believing that the healing power of the Holy Spirit will knit us back together with time, faith, compassion, and loving community.
Blessings & Peace in Christ Fellow Sheep!
Pr. Adrienne
Resources to assist in processing grief:
The Grief Club by Melody Beattie, The Shack by William Young, Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander, I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye by Brook Noel & Pamela Blair, How to Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies by Therese Rando, Making It Through The Toughest Days of Grief by Meg Woodson, In times of Pain by Jane Grayshon, Caregiving for your Loved Ones by Mary Vaughn Armstrong, How to Survive the Loss of a Love by Peter McWilliams