Grief

Grief. It's been a topic on my heart lately, watching a friend go through it. But also watching it bubble up inside of me, with much tinier spurts and trickles than I think should be there. I think it was only a few weeks ago that I decided I needed to acknowledge the reality of my experience. Life has been pretty crap. Until this admittance I had an impressively glass-half-full view of my entire existence considering I'm not usually on the positive bent.

My new confession: life has been really amazing, really special and really wonderful while being really taxing, really painful and really unfortunate. The two sit side by side in my mind and heart: amazing and awful. Like glowing sunshine and vibrant rainbows next to storm clouds and silhouetted dead trees. Let's throw in some battering wind as well. They leave me wondering whether one is a lie. I'm confused. Can they both be true?

I've been getting frustrated at the sunshine in my heart. There is a hope and a peace in there that is fit for a bible passage. It pretty much transcends all understanding and guards my heart and mind. (Referencing Ephesians 3 here if you didn't know.) "Stop being so hopeful! Go away and just let me feel proper grief for once!" I say (yell, plead, beg). I know it is there (the grief). I don't know how much is there but there is more than a few tears and a bit of pillow bashing. "God open my heart, pour it out, bring these feelings out." But still amidst some sorrow and frustration there is that glow that can only be of God and it just. won't. leave. I'm not truly sure whether I want it to leave because it is comfortable and soothing and tells me that everything is going to turn out fine. Amazingly wonderful even. And I know this is true. I have known for a long time and I can see it coming.

It struck me that my grief is a little different to those who are grieving for loved ones or lost property or pets. I am grieving for a life that didn't exist. It is grief for what could have been, not for what was and no longer is. Does that make it less valid? I'm not sure. I do know that I need to go through it. My grief is a little more forward looking and a little less backward looking. It has a giant pool of hope attached. God is a restorer. I believe I will look back from the joy of healing and restoration and remember my years of pain. I also believe that at that point I will be ready to fully feel the grief of a lost existence, even if that existence is only an imagination of what could have been.

For now I just say, "You know, life was really quite rubbish, but God was really amazing."

I look forward to healing. I cry a bit about the past. And I wait.