Someone recently told me that I “put up a good front.” But that’s not at all what I wish to do here. In fact, I believe authenticity builds community and vulnerability can be the conduit to bring healing to others.
Grief is natural and healthy. Tears have such cleansing power. Suffering makes us softer. Compassion grows out of our pain. Deep love lends itself to deep grief.
And some days – weeks – are harder than others.
I wish I could’ve captured a picture for you on a Sunday night, while I lay, soaked with tears and cold rain, on my husband’s grave. Or when I had a panic attack a few minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve. Or all the nights I’ve cried myself to sleep.
There is nothing easy or pretty about deep grief. Nothing. But remembering is ever so much better than forgetting.
And so, I’m trying to lean into my grief, rather than being afraid of it. No, I don’t want to build a house and live there, but it’s good to visit now and then. To embrace the hard instead of running from it. To be fully present in all the moments. Oh, yes, it will hurt, but the intensity of this pain will not last forever. God will get me through it and He will get the glory from it.
There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
Tonight is a time for sorrow; but one day the morning will break and joy will come again.
February 2022
