Living In The Tension

 Sometimes when you grieve, it's hard to know how to pray. Prayer doesn't come easily as the loss you feel seems to hold you some sort of captive, the pain of goodbye a reality you can't escape. And you wonder how you'll go on. Is there life after losing? Is there a way to joy in the midst of indescribable ache? 

I come across a word that describes well what I'm feeling: tension. Tension of an in-between that's yet to be fully revealed. Tension of a leaving behind and a trying to grasp at a future grace yet to be discovered. A grace that can only come through hardship. Tension of waiting for the "what happens after" as I attempt to grasp at the promise that somehow He'll redeem this for good. And in this tension it's honestly hard to know what to ask Him for. How to put the pain into words. 

I realize that this loss is different than others I've experienced prior because I had time. Time to see the end was coming...and to at least have a shot at praying for a miracle. Time to ask God to maybe change the outcome. But here, all I got was the end. It's over. I can't ask God to change anything. It was all done with before I even knew I needed to say goodbye. And so I'm left wondering what to even ask God to do in this situation. I can't beg Him to bring my Alex back. I can't ask Him to avert the tragedy of his passing. I can't even ask Him for a chance to say farewell. 

Maybe this is the one time that, because I can't ask God to change the circumstances, all I can ask Him to do is to change me. 

I'm currently reading a book on unanswered prayer, and I'm finding a strange sort of comfort in its pages as it encourages the reader to learn to ask rightly when the purposes of God seem to cross everything your heart feels. But it seems a bit odd to be delving into something on this topic because, in this loss, my prayers aren't necessarily unanswered. It wasn't like I knew to ask for God to write the story differently or that I even could see this end coming. It just happened. It was long over before I even knew about it. And yet there is a strange reassurance I'm discovering in the author's words as I know he's been here in this place of loss before...even more so than me. And his encouragement to pray through the Psalms, to let God's words become your words in the midst of the darkness. It's somehow bringing me closer to surrender in the midst. And so I keep reading. 

I stumble on this one paragraph where the author describes how some people pray for things for years that God one day answers and they receive eventually what they asked for. Others may persist all the same in prayer but never receive what they petitioned God for. Of this second group, the author says that "instead of giving up, they change how they are praying...they continue on the epic journey, adjusting to the changing landscape and adapting to new circumstances. They don't stop because the landscape is not to their liking or the plot isn't turning out as they expected. They change their expectations and continue the journey, always keeping in mind the ultimate goal - the coming of God's kingdom, the doing of God's will." * 

And I'm holding this truth close with everything I have - that the Kingdom of God is not always as I expect. That the landscape of the journey will often not look as I anticipate or desire. That I'll sometimes be disappointed before I'm enabled to become resigned. But, through it all, the Judge of the Earth will do right. And just because I can't find it in myself to pray doesn't mean that I should stop altogether. It simply means that I must continue to plunge the pain, trusting the Spirit to pray for me when I cannot articulate my heartache. 

This tension between the life that was and the life that is now is a powerful one. There are moments I find myself thinking that I'll just wake up from this nightmare and discover that it's all been one bad dream. That I can just call up my Alex and it'll all be like it was before. But then, I hear the pain of loss in a father's voice and I know this emptiness is reality. It's no dream at all. We've all loved...and we've lost. It's a process as I move through the tension of transition. Trying to figure out now how to go on living with a heart that's a bit emptier than it was a few weeks ago. 

And perhaps this is our challenge in any period of adjustment in our lives - learning to live in the midst of the tension. Not to run from it or wish that it was not there, but to learn contentment in its presence. To learn that hope has not left but is merely hidden for a time. As we seek to discover how to find a place for loss in the scenery of our lives, how to make it a part of us, we must move into the tension and ask for grace to change in the midst of it. 

Henri Nouwen once said, "You must be patient...until your hands are completely open." And somehow I see that this loss has, once more, ripped something I held dear right out of my hands. And my supposed sense of control has been put in its place once again by the will of my King who saw fit to insert unexpected pain into this story and deal me a tremendous loss that I must find it in myself to somehow accept. 

And the words slip out from my tongue as I contemplate this: help me to live in the tension. Help me to find that patience earlier described and to be okay in this place of feeling suspended between what I once enjoyed and what exists now. And just maybe it's this kind of prayer that You're really after. 

As I utter those resigned words wrapped in grief, I stare into those empty hands of mine and tell myself that, even in this, God is still good. 

* quote taken from When God Doesn't Answer Your Prayer by Jerry Sittser