Dear Friends,
“You can’t hurry grief.” Those were wise words sent to me in a card
from a member of a former church I pastored. Last year she lost her husband to
a heart attack, and she was writing to share her experience in dealing with the
grief of her loss.
At first, I wasn’t sure what those words meant. My nature and
inclination as a coach and a former athlete, was to bounce right back up when
you get knocked off your feet and move on like nothing happened.
But the truth of my friend’s comments continued to ring true.
Everyone experiences grief in different ways, but for me I have realized that I
need time to work through the pain of my loss.
Jesus wept as he stood beside the grave of his good friend
Lazarus. His grief was real. His words were genuine and sincere. His heart
ached at the loss of his good friend. He didn’t hide his grief and he doesn’t
expect us to hide or bury our grief as well.
When grief erupts, you suddenly recognize the tenderness of your
soul. Just when you think you are making progress, grief assumes control to
remind you that you still need more time to heal.
During the last months of Jean’s life, I would take her in the car
when I went grocery shopping. She wasn’t able to walk on her own, so she would
wait in the car while I got our groceries. Yesterday after shopping at Aldi’s,
I got in the car, and started to turn the key, when all at once grief hit me
like an avalanche. I felt overwhelmed with immense sadness, and I found myself
crying uncontrollably as I remembered our times together in an Aldi's
parking lot.
I shared my Aldi’s experience with my sister-in-law, and she wrote
the following.
“I can relate to you breaking down in Aldi’s. For me it was
with the Talbots catalog when I found myself picking out clothes to send
her."
"No offence, but she definitely preferred the clothes I got
her to those 4X sweaters you got her on Christmas Eve, though she laughed more
at your choices.”
I responded. “No way, Sue. She always wore those 4X Christmas
sweaters with great pride, and she told everybody that they were the greatest
gifts that she had ever received.”
Yes, laughter, as well as time, can help ease the pain of an
aching heart.
How glad I am for laughter. I can assure you that living with me
has produced a lot of it-mostly at my expense I might add-but today I am glad I
can still laugh at some of the dumb things I did when we were together because
I know laughter can be a healing balm to an aching heart.
Yes, I am still tender from my loss, and I know I have a long
way to go in my healing process. I recognize grief, like the winds of a
mighty hurricane, can hit me at any moment and knock me to the ground, but I am
learning not to be surprised or embarrassed when it does, for I recognize it is
part of the healing process.
There is an old Turkish proverb that says, “He who conceals his
grief finds no remedy for it.”
Whether at church as I was the other day, or alone in my car in an
Aldi’s parking lot, I am slowly learning to accept, and yes, even be grateful
for grief, knowing that grief itself is its own best medicine.
I am shortly heading south for a trip that will eventually lead me
to the church I served in Fort Lauderdale, but along the way I plan on making a
number of stops to visit some of my dearest friends. I know there will be
plenty of tears, and hopefully lots of laughter, and yes, even some pain,
but that is all a part of the healing process and who better to share it with
than those you love and those who love you in return.
I grieve yes, but I live in the knowledge that while, “weeping may
last for a night, shouts of joy come in the morning (Ps. 30:5), and so I
thank God for I know his victory is my victory and his triumph is my triumph,
and that not only do I enjoy victory over grief but I experience victory over
the grave: so I can rejoice and say with Paul, "Thanks be to God who gives
us the victory.
Yours in faith and friendship,
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