“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."
2 Corinthians 12:9
The dictionary defines grief as "deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement." Wikipedia's definition of is "a multi-faceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond was formed." I agree with the those descriptions and i was thinking about it the other day if i had to describe what grief looked like to me , i would say it would be like riding on a roller coaster. You feel like life is flying by so fast that you feel like you are constantly loosing your barrings and falling or feel like you are going to fall. You feel frozen in horror, you have the loops that take you upside down and make you want to vomit. You have the steady moments where you think you are going to be ok and then within a second you cascade down the track so fast that your heart feels like it is going to explode. You hold on tight to the rails for fear of letting go because even though you are strapped in you think there is always a possibility that you could fall out or the coaster could fall off its track. Its bumpy, frightening and always leaves you with a horrible feeling in your stomach.
As i am on this journey through my grief i have to learn that it is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of being human, when you love someone so much and loose them grief is the cost of loving that person so much. I am also realizing that people grieve differently and that is ok, countless people have experienced grief and each persons response to grief is different. My path of grief will be unequally my own. In the begging i struggled because i felt like my husband was not grieving like me and i wondered is there something wrong with me? or was there something wrong with him? I realized that he was hurting as much as i was but he was showing it in a different way, and that is ok. Regardless of how my grief appears to me or others, it has a precious uniqueness to the One who created me. God, who knows intimately my personality, my relationships, and the experiences of my life, knows my grief and isn't shocked or surprised by my responses. There are the "5 Stages of Grief" -
Denial: “This can’t be happening to me.”
Anger: “Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”
Bargaining: “Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.”
Depression: “I’m too sad to do anything.”
Acceptance: “I’m at peace with what happened.”
I have only experienced the first 4 stages and i know i will continue to face them throughout my whole life. I will have days where i just feel one of those emotions and then i will have days where i feel ALL of them. All but acceptance. That is a stage that i don't know if and when i will be able to come to terms with.
My prayer is that the Lord will continue to teach me to embrace my grief and not to fight it so i can experience the true healing that comes from the Lord. I know the Lord is with me and walking with me and he sees the shattered pieces of my life and future laying all around me. If i allow him he will pick up the broken and shattered pieces of my heart and he will put them together, but they wont be the way that they were before, Instead he will turn them into a new thing, he will ever so gently file down those jagged pieces of hurt, bitterness and despair and pour his love, grace and peace into them creating something new and wonderful, even if i cant see it now, trusting that when anything that's shattered and broken is laid before the lord he will take what was meant for harm and destruction and turn it into something so beautiful, beautiful because inspite of the pain HE will be shining through it.
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