“There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” – AESCHYLUS
Grief is something we all are aquianted with one time or another. I have found over the course of my life and observing the lives of others that it comes in many different forms. Each individual including myself grieves so very differently. None of us are ready for it when it arrives and in the midst of the suffering within it we entertain memories of joy we experienced.
I remember each time I took a pregnancy test and it was positive and immediately bonding with the life growing within me and visualizing what it would be like to be a mother to this child and hoping for the best possible pregnancy after experiencing multiple miscarriages and the joy of motherhood only to once again be disappointed and to walk the road of grieving my children.
We all have witnessed someone you love grieve the loss of someone they loved and listened to them revisit the memories they made with them and watching the tears well up as they tell stories of the love and the times of joy they shared. Or the grief of a friendship, marriage or romantic relationship that came to an unexpected end. Why does society try to downplay it or make it go away by giving a timeline or minimizing someone’s grief because they don’t want to deal with it, or support someone through it.
Grief comes in so many forms and we all deal with it different ways and the one thing I have seen consistently especially in my experience as part of the church that people don’t create space for it. They don’t allow a person to truly heal the way they need to heal for themselves. I’ve heard so many different things overs the years that make light of someone’s feelings while they are in pain. Or someone turns it around and makes it about themselves instead of asking questions to get understanding.
We all have permission to grieve and we all don’t have a timeline with grief. There is no way around it but only through it. Every part of it. It’s painful and we feel broken, angry, numb and depressed only to name a few emotions in the process of going through grief.
A Life Being Transformed 