Grief - A Necessary Journey

All of us have or will experience grief to varying degrees especially as it concerns the suffering and loss of those closest to us.   This is just a fact of living in a corrupt fallen world.  So what I am about to share is certainly not unique to me and many of you can speak with more eloquence and perspective to the journey of grief. 

With the loss of Heidi (on this side of Heaven) I have certainly experienced a level of grief that I never have before.  While we have some idea what grief is, it's actually sort of difficult to explain.  Webster defines grief as a "deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement."   What I do know is that grief is real and it's hard. Heidi's passing was not a surprise given her battle with MS for 27 years.  In fact the grief process started years before her passing as we together experienced many losses as the disease and her disability progressed. But even knowing the inevitability there was no way to prepare for the finality of the loss of my soul mate.   Initially there were tears for her suffering at the end of her earthly life but also a sense of relief as she had suffered for so long.  Once the activities and family visits surrounding Heidi's passing subsided I came back to an empty home AND IT HIT.   I was blasted and buried by an avalanche in the form of grief.  

The normal I had once known has collapsed leaving a huge void in time and space.  The solitude that Heidi and I once enjoyed together now easily lapses into loneliness.  Tears and emotion well up from places that I didn't know existed somewhere in the depths of my heart. And while there are periodic waves of emotion that come unexpectedly it's the gnawing in my gut that is unrelenting.  Additionally, the once organized mental folders have been strewn everywhere in my head. The mental focus that has always been there is now non-existent.  And with these and other "grief ailments" there seems to be no way to navigate around it.  Just one arduous passage through it is all that is in sight. The hardest part is that the love of my life that would have walked this path at my side consoling me with her encouraging words and comforting embrace is not here.   

I trust time through the grace of God will heal or at least callous some these wounds but I see no other way through it than to embrace the journey.  Grief is  an unwelcome but necessary companion being a by-product of having loved and been loved deeply.  For that I can be thankful.   

While difficult this is not a hopeless state.   I take great solace in the fact that God is with me and will shape my time to come for my good and His glory.   While Heidi is in a new state of joy in the presence of her Lord I am also in a new state of sorts with a clean canvas that has yet to be revealed by God's  brush of sovereign direction.  Grief will be a necessary passage as part of this unveiling journey.

A few of passages of Scripture that speak to His comfort and provision include:

Ps. 34:18 - The LORD is near to the brokenhearted. And saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Ps. 56:8 - Record my misery; list my tears on your scroll — are they not in your record?

Ps. 46:1 - God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

And with that there is great hope in how all of this turns out both in the temporal and eternal.  

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