You FEEL keen mental suffering--like just the idea of leaving the house where your babies were born and life has formed and moved and thrived--makes you physically wince, stomach turn and heart ache.
You FEEL keen mental distress--like the idea of leaving your in-laws behind who just recently moved 10 minutes away from you, so they could see you more--makes your head want to split open and explode.
You FEEL afflicted like when it seems you are pulling away from those you love and it appears they are pulling away from you. My mind is afflicted with the daily, minute by minute, moment by moment battles with lies from the way life is perceived sometimes.
You FEEL loss, keenly. I have fully counted the cost on a moment by moment basis, of what it means to leave this home of mine behind. I am aware of every moment of laughter, time spent with family and friends and small cousins, future events, etc. that we are leaving behind here in GA. Believe me, my friends, I have spent many sleepless, restless nights counting the cost. (Luke 14:25-33)
You FEEL sharp sorrow. Like I could physically walk around crying all the time. I really could. By the grace of God alone and the hope He alone provides, I don't, but I could. And let me assure you all, that just because I don't show it on the outside doesn't mean it's not screaming on the inside. The sorrow is real, and it is sharp.
I FEEL painful regret over what might could have been here had we chose to stay, over the relationships that could have formed, over the time that could have been spent.
And it's not just the move that's coming up, my friends. When I sat down to write the Christmas letter for 2013, I realized that I have spent almost an entire year or two grieving.
Because you don't just grieve over the death of people. You grieve the death of dreams, the death of ideas about life, the death of hopes for the future, the loss of time, the loss of money, the loss of goals. People grieve for many, many deeply personal reasons over deaths and losses and changes of many things.
You grieve the process of aging. When my back went out for three months the first of last year, I couldn't move without pain. God provided excellent therapists, and I did what they told me to do even when I didn't feel like it, but I grieved the loss of some physical motion. I grieved the reality that as I continue to age, their will continue to be loss in this area.
I still grieve the loss of my sweet friend, sister, daughter in Christ. There's not a day that goes by I don't think of her.
I grieve, mentally distressed, often by the way life has turned out sometimes. Expectations really are a beast of an enemy. You grow up your whole life thinking your life should look and feel and act a certain way, and when those expectations are killed one. after. the. other. you start to feel very defeated.
So to move on, you have to grieve the death of those expectations. Let go of your ideas of how relationships are suppose to work, of how other people are suppose to act, of how life is suppose to function. You have to LET. IT. ALL. GO.
Because you know what the opposite of grief is? Funny, when I looked it up, most words have several words listed as antonyms, but the word grief? It's one antonym was JOY.
And it made me smile from ear to ear. Because I have been living in the depths of the process of grieving over everything. Everything my friends! Last birthdays with family, last Thanksgiving in Georgia, lasts of this, lasts of that--everything is winding down in a rapid yet painfully slow bundle of moments that need to be stored up and deeply treasured and held onto for safe memory-keeping, and oh my friends, it is exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time so much so that this run-on sentence should have you as out of breath as I am!
But oh, when I was in California for 48 hours right before Christmas, oh the JOY! You see because on the other side of grief, if you will muddle through the process, if you will hold onto the hope of Christ alone (1 Timothy 1:1)--oh my friends! The opposite of grief is JOY!
I have been in desperate search of joy, and let me tell you something it's not in California. No, what I feel when I'm walking those beaches, driving those mountains, searching for my community out there--what I feel is joy because that's where God wants my family to be. Period. And that Joy gives me the strength to do what needs to be done (Nehemiah 8:10).
Oh, His presence is here in Georgia with me now, every day, and in His presence alone is pure joy; I've been doing some reading, and there's really no other way to experience joy except through the presence of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). So why am I not living every day with that joy? That's a good question.
For me, I think the circumstances of my life here for MANY reasons, complicate my thoughts. I can't get free. I can't get out of my own head. I'm daily battling those expectations I mentioned earlier of myself and others. It's been a daily battle for a few years now. I think I'm losing. And that has to do with me, not my God. I keep choosing other things, other people over Him, and I know He knows what's best for me, and I don't want to presume I know what God is thinking, but I think He knows I won't ever stop grieving if I don't get away. If I don't leave, if I don't remove myself, if I can't get far enough away for a long enough period of time to just let it all go--I think He knows I'm gonna drown inside my own head.
And if you find yourself living in a process of grief, I'd say the same goes for you as well. You don't have to move to California, but you do have to find a way to get away, to separate, remove yourself from the circumstances, the situation, the people. You have to allow yourself the space to figure out how to let go.
And I think this is hardest for the people around you.
Because what this looks like to those around you is you're pulling away, you're making different choices with your priorities. You may stop doing certain things you've always done in the past, you may stop seeing certain people you've always hung out with before. You appear to be shunning the people you love most. You may seem distant or distracted or apathetic because you are mentally, physically, or spiritually or all of the above choosing to leave, remove, and let go. You are working through the grief. And this simply takes time. Alone.
But we aren't alone very much anymore are we? We stalk Facebook, watch TV, listen to music, surround ourselves with ministries and activities and family and friends. Anything to make us not feel so alone, yet to be alone, completely alone is exactly what we need to move on, to process, to hear God. All of these good things can actually hinder the grieving process if we're surrounding ourselves with them outside of God's calling, if we're doing them for the sole reason of not being alone. Inside God's calling, they can help heal, but otherwise, I'm of the tendency to believe they are joy-stealers, time fillers--something to distract us from the needed process of grieving. Just a thought....I digress...
So for those of you who know someone who is grieving, love them through the distancing. Realize they are processing even if they don't know they're processing. Accept them for who they are in the situation they are in, and point them to the joy on the other side of the grief. They don't need to feel your distance too because they already know they are the cause of their own isolation. They don't blame you for not wanting to be around them, but they feel the lack of your presence in their lives just the same. Just one more thing to grieve.
People grieve all the time for many different reasons, so it wouldn't be uncommon to find yourself in a situation where you are in a group of people where everyone is grieving for one reason or another. Grieving people have a hard time comforting others. So this situation is just hard. Period. Give each other a double portion of grace. Give each other the benefit of the doubt. Give each other more good will than you may each deserve. Assume nothing--ever. Give a wide berth for flexibility, hurt feelings, and the meeting of needs. Stop expecting anything of anyone. They're grieving too.
And for you, the one grieving, keep letting go. Don't give up. I know it's hard and painful and difficult. But when you stop letting go, you begin to hold on and that breeds nothing but anger, contempt, and bitterness. Do you know an angry, bitter person? They stopped letting go of something at some point in their life and decided it was better if they just held onto it for a while. To get to the joy on the other side of the grief, you have to LET GO.
And here's the thing, you're letting go of pain and hurt and affliction and sorrow and regret! Who wants to keep those? You're letting go, and then you're letting God fill in all the holes they leave behind. Have you ever seen an empty shell of a person? Someone with no life in their eyes? With no goals, no purpose, no meaning? That's a person who has grieved, but never let God fill in the holes.
If you don't let the Holy Spirit fill in the holes, you will NEVER experience joy.
And I WANT JOY! Oh, how I have been longing for joy! To be rid of the shadows that lurk in the corners of my mind, to be rid of wondering if someone is going to get their feelings hurt over this, to be done battling over why my feelings shouldn't get hurt over that. No, I want all of that gone, and I think the Lord knows I will find a freedom I have never known in California.
Oh, I'm not naive. Life will catch back up to me. Because there is always a time to mourn and a time to dance (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Life is a crazy roller coaster of a balancing act. But if you see me blow up my Instagram, Twitter, and/or Facebook feed with all the wonderful things about California, please don't take it personally. Please be happy for me because for the first time in a very long time, when I am walking that shoreline, I am free, and I don't have one single other thought in the whole wide world other than, 'Look at this beautiful world God has made just for me.' Not one. other. thought.
To my little brother who inadvertently requested this blog=), I will miss you. I have been missing you. I have been grieving everyone and everything and life in general for quite some time. But joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5), and for me, that sunrise is on a different coast. I need to focus on that. I need to live in the Hope of that Joy. It's what keeps me smiling when you see me. It comes from Christ alone. So if I seem ok to you, I hope you know you're seeing Jesus because that's simply the only Good thing inside of me to see these days. ....Huh. Truthfully, He's the only Good you see in me on any given day.
And for those of you who God has seen fit to leave you right where you are to deal with your grief, I encourage you to follow the path He's going to open that allows you to escape, to leave, to remove, to be set apart for just a time, maybe just a short season or maybe a long one. He will provide a way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13) when the temptation to wallow in grief becomes too great, but you have to be looking, and you have to trust Him because it's probably going to feel scary. It may come in a form you could never imagine. So pray hard, search the scriptures, open your eyes and heart to new possibilities. Dream big! The question is will you trust Him enough to follow Him in His way out of the grief? Because there's joy at the end of that path, my friend! There is joy! I can see it and feel it already!
Psalm 16:11
You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
Be encouraged today that Christ is the fullness of Joy! Anyone searching for it can find it fully in Him. His paths and His ways alone. Grieving is only a season of life. It's an emotion that must be processed and put behind you, not put in control of you. This too shall pass if you let go. Follow the process through. Do the hard thing of being in the process; see it through. Then enjoy resting in the arms of the King of the process. Because the opposite of grief is joy. By definition joy cannot exist in the the presence of grief and vice versa. One must be absent for the other to exist, and grief doesn't just disappear overnight.
What are you grieving?
Be alone with God and see it through. He alone is the Fullness of Joy.
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