Hope

Last week, my husband and I were reminded of God’s goodness to us. As our pastor and friend taught from the book of Job, encouraging the church how to pray in the midst of great loss, we sat close and held hands, knowing each other’s hearts without even a glance or a word.

Grief is something we know well, but during our darkest days, we experienced the compassion of God in ways that transformed us.

As God reminds me this morning that his heart is not to waste any of our pain, I want to share some hope with you. I want to share the compassion we experienced with anyone whose heart is heavy with grief today.

I don’t know your story, but I believe that no matter our loss, God’s grace and goodness can carry us through it all.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Sit with God

As I look back to the darkest days of loss, I recognize the greatest source of comfort to me was the Word of God. Each time I read scriptures, even wearily and emotionally depleted, I was drawing near to God. It’s not that verse after verse spoke directly into my grief, it was simply being in his presence. Reading my Bible didn’t change my circumstances or take away my pain, but as our pastor said on Sunday, it helped me carry the pain in a different way. My first post after my loss speaks more to this.

Sit with Your Grief

It sounds wrong, it feels awful, but welcoming your grief and pain is good. The Bible says that Job shaved his head and tore his robe. He let himself feel it all. I remember laying in my closet with the door closed, face buried in the carpet, pounding the floor with my fists. Often, when my children left for school, I would crawl back under the covers and cry until no more tears would come. I broke things and screamed into my pillow.

As a parent, we want to protect our children from any form of pain, but allowing them to see our sadness, gives them permission to feel theirs. As they watch us grieve, they learn how to do the same. For my husband and I, we each lost a spouse. Helping our children navigate losing a parent, feeling their loss along with our own has been the single most difficult part of our stories.

Yet, we know that there is really no way to escape grief. It actually goes hand-in-hand with love. If we love deeply, we need to grieve deeply. If avoided, the pain will sit and simmer in our bodies and most likely wreak havoc in some way. Grief catches up to us, so it’s better to welcome it now.

Sit with Community

I get so emotional remembering the way my community comforted me. In moments when I could hardly breathe, friends sat with me. Dinners were left at my front door in a cooler when I just couldn’t face anyone. Cards filled my mailbox. Tires were purchased for my car, sweet friends sent a box of lovely gifts on Valentine’s Day. All were acts of love by people who loved our family. My heart could not be more grateful for the way he loved us through our community.

Sharing my pain and grief honestly with others was the most vulnerable thing I had ever done; it felt safer in my closet, alone. But inviting another into my pain meant I did not have to carry it alone. I remember sitting at my dear friend’s kitchen table sobbing, and she simply just cried with me.

Sit with a Counselor

I’m not sure why we have this thought, “I should be able to handle this.” What if we ask ourselves, “How can I best support myself?” My husband and I both sought help from counselors. Grief is an overwhelming emotion that lingers way beyond the initial outpouring of love from family and friends. We often feel like those closest to us can’t handle much more of our mourning. Counseling can be a great place for us to just let it out, to hear someone say, “This is normal.” My husband’s counselor told him that each time he talked about his pain and loss it was like “getting the poison out.”

Loss can be intertwined with so many other emotions and issues- regret, anger, shame, fear, and trauma. Asking a counselor to help guide you through grief in a healthy way is an amazing way to love yourself so that you can show up for your life in a healthy way.

Sit with Hope

Grief can be so unbelievably painful that we feel like our hearts will never heal. Just getting out of bed can feel impossible. Our pastor and friend once told me, “If it’s not good yet, God’s not done yet.”

He was right. God can see you through the darkest days. His word can sustain you, he can love you through community, and he can guide you through godly counseling. It’s His heart to meet you in your loss.

Believe that God sees you, that he is working for your good, that he loves you as his child, that he will heal your heart.

He is our hope.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13