Have A Funeral...

 Sometime ago, an author whose latest book I was reading at the time, proposed the idea that there are moments when it's permissible, even necessary, to have a funeral. No, not the kind most of us are used to when we pay respects to someone special who passed away. Rather, a funeral for something in our lives that didn't go as we planned or hoped. A season of grief over what never came to be... or what once was but never will be again. 

I've since been really thinking about this concept and realizing that I do this privately all the time. As someone who has been touched deeply by traumatic situations in my life, I lament and mourn the un-doing, the collapsing, the redefining, the transitioning, the changing. Because none of it has turned out how I'd wanted. The human inside of me who wants it to be fair and seem logical has had a hard time making sense of the senseless. The hurts and the suffering has often felt extremely random and unreasonable. I've struggled to see God in the midst and understand what He was up to. 

Perhaps you've felt that way at some time in your life, also. 

What I'm coming to see now is that when you wake up to reality in a set of circumstances in your life - it could be relational, it could be physical, it could be emotional, mental, or even spiritual - once you reach that place where you're ready to see what you didn't want to before... once you're willing to admit the dysfunction and the pain and even the death of what you once thought you knew about something or someone (including yourself!)... the road to healing starts with a funeral. One that only you can attend. 

Yes, caring friends and family will listen and support and love you through the hurt of the situation but, at the end of the day, nobody will relate to it exactly like you will. Nobody will see or feel or sense just what you will and that means that you will have to grieve the loss of that dream, relationship, opportunity, money - whatever it may involve - on your own. It is a road that only you can walk. 

Now, for many Christian circles, the idea of holding your own personal funeral for what you lost is often portrayed as unnecessary. The art of lamenting what is not right with yourself, your situation, others in your life, and even the world is deemed too heavy. And so most of us are taught to live in the happy of life at all costs... even the cost of our own sanity: Don't admit you're struggling - that's bad self-esteem! Don't talk about your pain because Jesus is the Healer and if you just have enough faith, everything will be okay! Don't bring up the past because God says He's making all things new! Don't sit with how you feel because God doesn't want you stuck! And on and on it goes... until we hit a breaking point and our bodies and spirits and minds, which aren't built to carry such burdens in perpetuity, finally tell us they can't hold the tension anymore. 

Whether sick in the bones or sick the soul, we were never intended to act as if nothing happened. When it comes to our pain, the truth is, something DID happen, and we know it. 

If we were to use the analogy of a physical breaking... say... a broken arm or leg, there's no way we could pretend that everything was normal. Not when our appendage is hanging at an odd angle or a bone is protruding or the pain feels unbearable! We would go immediately to a clinic or doctor and request to be seen. We would seek the help of someone who could address the situation because there's no chance we could ignore the reality. 

Yet somehow, when it comes to our internal life and the losses we have incurred, we think that it's different. That holding a funeral for what fell apart in some way is akin to refusing to let it go. But I'd venture to say that it's actually impossible to truly let something go unless we have properly faced and dealt with what it meant to us and how we are feeling in its absence. 

If you've read any of my recent posts, you'll know that the last year or so has held many mini-funerals for me personally. I've had to say a lot of "goodbyes" to chapters of my life because things changed and people changed and the way things were going wasn't sustainable and I wanted something more... something better. But it didn't mean any of those necessary endings and transitions were easy or comfortable. Rather, some of them were among the hardest decisions of my life. And I had to process them all... one at a time. 

But I've had to keep telling myself that when my body or my soul bring something to the surface and I'm led to mourn a situation all over again, this is truly alright and it is needed and it is part of my steps to healing and acceptance. 

Without making space to shed a few tears or shout a little or acknowledge our anger or ask some questions along the way, the impact of what has happened will continue to scream inside and force its way out until... somewhere down the road, we bust and we burst and we cannot hold inside how we feel anymore. Because we were created to express. 

I don't know what in your life you may be needing to hold a funeral for. Maybe it's a breakup or a divorce, somebody special's disloyalty or betrayal, the loss of an aspiration or dream you had, the abrupt ending of an extended season of success, financial loss, unexpected health decline, loss of a family member or dear friend, witnessing a traumatic event, getting fired or let go from your job... whatever it may be, perhaps today is God's invitation to you (and mine!) to go find a quiet spot and let it come out. Let the dam bust. Stop holding in the pain and telling yourself "it's fine" or "it'll go away." Because the truth is, the longer you wait and keep putting off healing, the longer process it will be to make peace with what went on. 

Don't let your heart go untreated. Jesus wants to touch you with His love and help you find a new beginning and a way forward in light of what happened. This doesn't mean the pain didn't occur but it does mean you incorporate it into the story of you and learn to grieve what it did to you and your hopes. It'll take time, no doubt. But it'll be time well spent in the long run. Time that someday, you'll look back and be thankful for because the funeral you hold now might lead you into the party you hold in the future.  The loss you sit with today may make room for the fresh start you experience tomorrow.