Is Grief Your Friend or Enemy?
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
I crawl into bed, grab the covers, and bury myself underneath. The dam of emotion needs to break open. So I let it. I claw at the pillow and sob. The grief has overtaken me after experiencing several triggers of death and loss over the last few days. I finally allow myself to fully feel it rather than fighting through it each day. I said goodnight to the kids only minutes before. Brett should be on his way home soon from his softball game.
I am alone, and I find myself in this position of helplessness, brokenness, and suffocating pain, almost to paralysis, where all I can do is sob because my mind cannot process much else. It’s all so familiar now. It’s almost becoming…a friend? Maybe I’m crazy. But I’m finding myself more and more not afraid of the grief and pain. It’s a paradox: finding comfort in grief. I sense when the dam needs to be released. When the waves are too much. I yearn for solitude. I need to find refuge in the tears and cries of pain.
Therefore, I bury myself deep under. Hidden and safe. Where I meet my new friend, Grief, who I used to view as foe. This friendship has deepened, and I now anticipate the other side of this wave. I will get through this. I will get back up and keep going. I’m gonna be OK. I’m being made stronger. I only have to endure this pain a little while longer. Some waves last longer than others. So until then…
I sob with Grief, and cry out, “Lord, help me!” over and over again. It is made definite to me that Grief is my friend, not my foe, because each time she meets me here, she spurs me to my Lord. I now long for these moments because I am surrounded by the presence of the Lord. The covers over me are not my blankets. They are the shelter of His wings. I am hidden and safe because He is my refuge. I hide in the darkness of pain and suffering because the dark shadow of His wing is my protection. When I can’t breathe, He breathes for me.
And He doesn’t leave me here. Every time, He saves all my tears in a bottle and hears my cry of help. Jesus is always present in pain and suffering. He will rescue us over and over when we cry out to Him, and there is truly nowhere else to run for comfort.
Oh, how I know! Oh, how I know that there is truly nowhere else to run. In bouts of pain throughout my life, I have chosen to run to other things to numb it…
Food — spoonfuls of peanut butter covered with chocolate chips…until the jar is half eaten and the bag is empty.
Books — escaping into another world of fantasy and fiction.
Self-harm — transferring my emotional pain to physical pain.
Apathy — mindlessly living unseen.
Fantasizing — believing the false perception that life would be easier somewhere else.
None of these are safe. None bring lasting, genuine comfort. All are darkness posing as light. Instead…
Light is found when I’m covered in the darkness of His wing.
Pain is soothed only when I escape into the security of His truth.
My suffering was transferred to Jesus’ suffering.
The God who sees me has purpose for me, especially in my grief.
A harder, not easier, life is where I actually need to be. Fire and water. Pain and suffering. This is where God brings me out to abundance. Where I experience more of Him, and where I become more like Him.
My tears have now slowed to a stop. The deep wave is receding. My hope is made secure once again in the assurance that at the end of this dark, deep, hard place, I will find: Peace. Strength. Security. Breath. Comfort.
Comfort is found with Grief. Until next time, friend.
~Excerpt from Chapter 33 in Living Hope.
You can watch a video on Edward T. Welch teaching on grief here. He is a licensed psychologist and faculty member at the Christian Counseling & Education Foundation.
How do you perceive grief? Do you run from it? That can take on many forms, like the ones I mentioned above, or by suppressing it over and over again hoping it will eventually go away.
There are only two directions when pain hits: toward God or away from Him. When we turn away, we are replacing Him with something else in vain attempt for hope, comfort, security, and peace. Maybe something helps superficially, but it will never last, only leaving you desperate for more.
Like the woman who reached out to me, do you need to change your perspective on grief as a friend and not the enemy? Your loss is real, horrific, and soul-wrenching. But the grief is neutral, not wrong, bad, or shameful. It’s what we do with the grief, where we turn from the shame, and act out of the pain that either makes us or breaks us.
Let me repeat Edward T. Welch again, because it’s too important to miss: “Our grief is an occasion to move farther into the sanctuary. To move closer to our personal God. Rather than farther.”
The weight of the grief will break you, unless you turn to the only One who can remake you. This is how grief is our friend and not our enemy.
It took me 33 chapters in my book to finally see grief as not the enemy. Read more of my story here.
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