Grief: A Journey Of Healing
Grief: A Journey Of Healing
Time on the hill. Watching the horses with their tails swishing the flies from their bodies I think back to times that were more challenging and painful. Times of failure or rejection. Times of extreme loss, loss of family, husband, a lifestyle and way of living. Whether the loss of family because of faith or loss of lifestyle with Marvin having nine heart attacks and ultimately dying, life as it was or hoped to be had been shattered.
But God.
When we are in a battle our energy, emotion, focus, and resources are all garnered to protect, defend, to prevail. Fortifying the castle, reinforcing the walls protecting our young. When so much energy and resources go into the fight, when it is done, there is a grief that happens; a "letting go” as it were. We’re finally in a position to allow ourselves to grieve the thing we had hoped for long ago that wasn’t able to come to pass. A sadness for the dreams; for our children’s dreams that ended shattered and broken.
We all grieve differently. It is a fact. We need to allow each other to grieve in our own unique way. Then there are times we need to support and encourage others in their grieving.
It is taking the time to grieve that can bring healing from the inside out. There are times we can do it alone, sometimes we need to be alone in our sadness and grief with our Heavenly Father. There are times when we need someone else to help clear the riverbed of the boulders and tree trunks that have cluttered the free flow of God’s restoring and healing water to flow through touching the places that only the “master” can heal.
Grief is an odd but necessary thing. We must grieve the good things lost but there seems to also be a need for grieving the end of the battle. How do we … where do we … go from here? We are then confronted with the fallout from the battle, the debris left on the landscape of our lives and the lives of those we love. When the battle is done we are in a position to realize there were those fighting with us and those who “jumped ship”. There were the wounds of those we trusted that betrayed us. As we walk back through the now quieted battlefield there will be scraps you see on the ground of the hidden treasures you once overlooked. You will also see the ravaged hollow carcasses of once trusted treasured relationships.
There is only one place that I know that is safe enough to go with grief.
God.
For me this past year it was in going to the retreat in Colorado that unearthed the deep need to grieve. It wasn’t in the people or even all the messages. It was the time in the prayer room after a few of the messages that God met me face to face. This gave me the permission to know I needed to forgive God for allowing some of the things that had happened over the last several years. I would never have had the audacity to think I should even consider needing to forgive God.
But He knew. It was the beginning of the healing in my heart.
God in His gracious love continued what He started in Colorado. Through circumstance that continued I ran out of ways to “compartmentalize” to survive. I withdrew. I needed tools is what I thought.
God said “No, you need healing for your grief, the grief you don’t even realize is there. You see it as being strong and life,” He saw it as pain and rubble on the battlefield that would fester in the wound that would eventually take me out.
He needed to do surgery on those wounds. They were deep mortal wounds that only He could heal. The picture in my heart was surgery cutting out the infected area and God pouring gold into the clean open wound to sear it and keep it clean and pure. The gold was visible showing that there was an injury, a weakness that would now become a strength stronger than anything man could have accomplished. It would become a glaring shield that would always be a reminder to the enemy of my soul who I was and whose I was. I need to remember the same.
For me, I had help in the form of a counselor to get to the riverbed and the rubble. He was the tool God used to allow me to look at the battlefield with clarity. My counselor was able to be the hand that held the surgical knife while God guided him with precision. God poured the gold. It was painful but complete.
We must walk back through the battlefield to find the treasures and to bury the carcasses so that we are able to fully heal, stronger than before and able to embark on the next leg of our journey.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.”Psalm 23:2-4 English Standard Version (ESV)
God is the true safe place. He will never leave you or forsake you. He will always be your healer, master, good shepherd, loving father. Always!
I have a prayer I found years ago.
“God grant me the courage to not turn away from You until I have faced You squarely, without excuse or explanation but naked with all my weaknesses and strengths”.
I have found over the years that it isn’t when I feel like I am wrong, but it is in identifying my weaknesses and strengths that it is most beneficial. It helps me remember that when I am willing to let God see both that God can help me with both. It is part of grieving and allowing God to see it all, that true healing can happen.
Today are you willing to let God walk you through the pain you have put to the side?
