A JOURNEY THROGH GRIEF

(These thoughts are added to three times each week)

This is largely a rewrite of what I wrote several months ago. I am presenting it again because it has now been buried in time and new readers may not dig that deeply.

Are there some new thoughts below newly expressed. Yes, that too.

Grief hurts. When it comes, we feel out of control.

All of us have experienced it for one reason or the other: death, terrible sickness in our own bodies or the bodies of those we love, divorce, the loss of a career, the loss of a child. It comes in different guises, but in some form it always comes to everyone. It always does.

How best then can we deal with this ripping and tearing at our stability. Some weep until there are no more tears left to cry with. Some try to drown their sorrow in a bottle or the impact of a pill. Some try to repress their heartache and, like a kettle with no escape valve, eventually explode.

But some…some take their wounded selves to God and seek his special solace.

And what is God’s special solace? “It is the gift of being that allows us to laugh in the face of time and bow in awe at the opening of Eternity.” (anonymous)

When what was is no more. When a loss is complete and final, many grow bitter and are overcome by galloping despair. Cry out in continuous anguish, shout into the darkness of night over and over again, “Why, God? Why me?” Others shout and rail at God in anger.

Would you ease your own grieving time? Then go out, and though still hurting or remembering how badly once you hurt, use your personal knowledge of pain to help others. Sharing your remembrances will hurt, but it will remind the one to whom you speak that thay are not alone and that someone is now caring enough to give their very best.

Yes, search for some other hurting survivor. Hold the palsied hand of someone old and alone, or give patient love to a little lad or lass who obviously gets very little of it at home. Be a loving friend who takes a day off from work to stand in those final moments by a grave with someone who knows you went out of your way to show you care. You are too busy? Oh, yes...if this is a speed bump on your way toward active compassion...you are indeed too busy.

In other words, move from the theological to the practical. Study the Sermon on the Mount and start building your own little hill of concern.

Helen Keller was deaf, dumb and blind, but she didn’t spend her life sitting alone in dark, dumb, dingy silence feeling sorry for herself. Rather she got up every morning and went out. Went out to where the birds were singing, and people were talking and the world was living, all of which she could neither hear nor see. Went out to pour the sweet perfume of noble thoughts on others and feel some of it splashing back upon herself.

Don’t misunderstand me, she wasn’t born with this wonderful attitude. In her youth she would literally flail at family and teachers, making loud almost animal-like sounds of frustration. Then one day, her teacher got through to her that there is more than one kind of blindness.

That, yes, there is physical blindness that cannot see light, but there is also spiritual emotional blindness that will not search for light. And so she decided to make the most of life and not the least, to look for the best and not the worst. She decided not to daily grieve over her misfortune, but instead deal with it with a multitude of positive actions minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day until she had lived out a lifetime of service.

More than once I have placed my hand on the shoulder of another human being bent low with hurting and said, “Weep…cry…. Slowly siphon it out of your system. Then turn and begin to walk away from your wounding. Otherwise, you but nurture a ghost that will haunt you the rest of your days.”

Over and over again we must seek to turn our stumbling block called grief into a stepping stone, and then one day, one wonderful, momentous day, the peace that passeth understanding comes. The hurt often never really goes away, but the ability to bear the anguish, live with the fear, endure the frustration, the ability does come walking into our lives.

Would you find healing or advise someone else how to find healing? Sup then on those things that feed and soothe your soul. Walk outside and breathe in the spirit of God speaking to you from the existence of millions of blinking stars. Look up at the universe and feel the eternal extension of it. Walk quietly where there is the roar of an ocean shouting its power against the shore, or the rippling of a stream playing its musical notes against the stones, or the hint of a new day blushing the horizon. Plant a seed. Hold a leaf in your hand.

Henry David Thoreau in his little house by Walden Pond once wrote, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush (is) aflame with God.”

Do not succumb to thoughts that are tattletale gray. When tears are falling, the first thing you need to do is paint the dull, dead landscape of your thinking with colorful thoughts and a colorful faith. Things are not going well so you are not thinking bright yellow or bold red? It is understandable.

Should you attend a funeral service in pulsing pink? Probably not, but permanent black for an incessant forever isn’t a good idea either. You want to be alone when your world has come apart at the seams? Quite likely. But this is why you shouldn’t give in to giving up. Rather unclench your fist and reach for heaven's radiance. Let loose the vigor of God on the lethargy of your sorrow.

“Grief,” said Disraeli, “is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief is the blunder of a lifetime.”

What then to do?

It’s the last thing you want to do when you are overcome with grief but force yourself to watch a funny movie. Read a funny book. Laugh at a funny cartoon. It is a prescription from the book of Proverbs, “The cheerful heart is good medicine.” (Proverbs 17:22)

This brings me to the wrap up of these ideas; relief sometimes comes only after persistent persistence. Not giving up on prayer. Not giving up in our search for comforting holy truths. Not giving up.

Learn to finally say and mean, “I am thine Lord. I present myself as a spiritual sponge. Ready to absorb at whatever pace solace comes. Give me patience for I have it not and it looks like I am not going to find it immediately. You are mine and I am thine. Stamp this truth upon every fiber of my being. Amen...and again amen."

If grieving is caused by what we no longer have, cannot thanksgiving for what we do still have be of help? There is much truth in the words, It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

James Barrie put it this way, “God gave us memories that we (might) have roses in December,”

(To send this to a friend, Google makes it quite easy. Just click below these thoughts on "Tell a a friend)