It's like a living force. It cannot be denied. People say that time heals grief, but it's simply not true. Time can create an illusion of healing -- that much is true. Life carries on. It resumes some kind of ebb and flow of normal. I learn to laugh again, and cry. I get up in the morning and go to sleep at night. I work and vacation. I pick up my old routines, or develop new ones. I adjust to the "new normal".
But underneath the facade of normal, the grief lies simmering, an inexorable force which pushes me to react without thinking, and I'm not even aware of it.
I don't feel sad.
I don't feel like I'm grieving.
I feel like I'm doing fine, like life has carried on, and there is good and joy and love and life left to live.
But unless I have actively walked through the grieving process, allowed myself to ask the hard questions, and feel the anger, the pain, the despair, the hopelessness, the deep, deep fatigue, the sense of not caring about anything anymore, the disinterest in life, the sadness and heartbreak and disappointment, and the other myriad conflicting emotions that accompany grief, my heart retains deep wounds. They lie buried, hidden from my conscious experience but affecting my subconscious reactions. The feelings lie in wait, looking for the smallest break in the dike to burst out and flood my heart with tears as hot and hard as if the loss had just happened. Unless I wrestle with the questions of why and why not and bring them to the only One who can provide any kind of answer, they continue to taunt and nag, like the faintest of whispers, raising doubt and fear at the least provocation. Pushing them away does nothing. Pretendiing they're not there is useless.
And grieving is far bigger than feeling sad. It's far bigger than missing the person I lost, or the life I lost, or the dream I lost. It's far bigger than learning to live in a "new normal".
It is more like a bloody, snotty, tear-filled, gut-wrenching, exhausting battle to hold onto faith in a good God who loves me despite all apparent physical evidence to the contrary. My life was shattered. My heart was splintered. And God let it happen.
Pretending that battle isn't there doesn't solve it. Pretending I'm not asking the questions does nothing but distance me from the very God I need most desperately. He doesn't deal with pretend and masks. He doesn't love my facade of faith and fortitude when inside I am broken and wondering why. He loves me. With all my doubts and fears and pain. All my pretend does is push me away from him.
Neither does pretending God didn't let it happen solve it. Either he is sovereign, or he is not. If he is sovereign, he let it happen. If he is not sovereign, he is not God. There are no alternatives.
Ungrieved grief leaves me with a crippled faith, a faith that is strong when there is evidence that God loves me, but that is wracked with doubt and fear the moment life takes a turn for the worse. Because I have never wrestled with the questions, every time something goes wrong, my heart immediately flies back there: Does God really love me? Then why does he allow me to be so desperately hurt? Does he really have my best interests at heart? If I care deeply about something, will he take it away? When I pray most fervently, does he remain silent? When my tentative faith attempts to answer with the truth, the questions fly up, hot and heavy, throwing in my face that ungrieved grief, those unshed tears. Every new trial, every fresh loss only calcifies the old hurts.
But faith, real faith, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Active faith believes God is who he says he is and can do what he says he can do even when I am still hoping, even when I cannot see it. Genuine faith holds onto the knowledge that God is who he says he is and can do what he says he can do even when life turns sour.
I want that kind of faith. I want a faith that isn't shaken by the blows of life, that believes God all the time even when I cannot see. I want a faith that dares to hope that he not only can, but will act in ways immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine. I want a faith that dares to ask him to move so. I am tired of a faith that trembles under trial and trusts for so little.
Which leads straight back into the heart of grief.
It leads back to the time when prayer was answered in a way that seemed cruel, and I became afraid to ask. Back to the time when the longing of my heart went to the grave, and I wondered why. The time when I trusted for much and my heart was broken and my faith was shaken.
And I never cried.
But grief does not negate joy.
Asking honest questions does not mean I do not trust God.
Not grieving as those who have no hope does not mean not grieving at all.
I have grieved over other things. Grieved, and forgiven, and healed. And the shaking in those areas has stopped. God did not abandon me. He did not turn from me in disgust for my questions and my wrestlings and my tears. He held me up and held me close.
So I'm going to go back. I'm going to bring to God the questions I have never even consciously thought about but which are always close at hand when life goes awry. I will cry the tears that have not been shed for 20 years. I am going to grieve unanswered prayer. Unfulfilled longing. The loss of a father I needed so badly. The loss of a dad I loved.
He may not give me answers to my questions, but I know he will give me Himself.
It is a step of faith.
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