When God Doesn't Fix It

 Have you ever asked yourself that timeless question, Why am I not over this by now? 

Ever gotten frustrated that old feelings of resentment, sadness, anger, loneliness, betrayal, fear, hopelessness, despair, and a thousand other possible things keep finding their way back to you when you genuinely thought you'd buried the memories and the pain? 

Been surprised sometimes at how an injustice from years gone by or a loss you mourned or a transition you made can still bother you all this time later?  

It's like you're caught off guard at the fact that an unexpected wave of grief or heartache can hit you out of nowhere, even regarding situations that you felt you have moved on from. A song you once danced to with your lover comes over the radio... a baseball stadium you used to frequent with your dad is getting torn down... the property your childhood home once stood on has now been taken over by tenement housing... the wedding ring you vowed you'd never remove now sits in a box in your dresser because he cheated and left you... you stare at flowers blooming at the graveside of the child you once held in your arms... you see a former boss in the grocery store, reminding you of what you had to walk away because management chose somebody else over you... you go visit a friend in the hospital and you suddenly feel the chest tighten as trauma rushes back, bringing with it flashbacks of tense hours spent there hoping your loved one would survive... you see her announce on social media that she's found the love of her life and is set to be married - the same one that you asked to spend the rest of your life with and instead she said no... 

Loss comes to us a million different ways, and we try to make our peace with it as best we can. But even once we've resigned ourselves to the many ways in which we've been changed by it and life will never be the same, somehow we're still shocked at how devastating and deeply wounding any form of letting go can be. Whatever the cause, it's an intrusion that has upended everything and everyone involved, leading to endings and beginnings nobody was prepared for. And it's not something that you just "get over" in a day. 

Even though we know grief takes time, I think we sometimes don't realize just how MUCH time...

Lately, I've been reminded of this reality in several varied means. Things I've felt for some time that I'd started to move on from have been suddenly triggered, bringing with them more unprocessed thoughts and emotions that I truly thought were a thing of the past. While I realize that any form of mourning runs its own course and you have to give it time, I'm constantly being brought back to the fact that said "time" is not what I expected. And the fact that we live in a world that won't allow you that time makes it even worse! Did you know that the 2022 updated version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders actually says that any period of grief that lasts longer than six months for children and teens or longer than a year for adults can be classified as "prolonged grief disorder"? Really?! We've reduced the journey of loss to a set period after which you become a labeled disorder?! Ask any grief expert and they'll tell you that, for major losses, it's an average of 3-5 years for most people to find their way in the aftermath. And now we're saying that we're too impatient to even give people that long?!

Along my journey of dealing with my own pain, I've long understood the necessity of redefining the concept of healing. And now I'm having to redefine it again. Because I'm seeing that sometimes, even though we know certain chapters are final and there's no going back, we still want God to fix it. We still wrestle with the fact that we didn't get the resolution that we wanted. We crave closure. Anything to sew up the whole thing in a nice pretty little bow. But then I come across something an author points out in a book I'm reading about loss and he reminds me that when it comes to grief about anything, there is no such thing as a perfect ending. That there isn't really closure in the way we tend to think of it. There's no final, nicely-sewn-up result where everyone ends up satisfied. Loss will always leave you wanting and wishing for what could've been. 

Maybe healing isn't so much about getting to a place where we agree with the move God made to not "fix" it as we hoped He would. Perhaps it's not helpful to keep looking for that proverbial bow on top that somehow makes everything okay: that long-awaited apology, that avoidance of death, that medical miracle, that job promotion, that "I do" at the altar, more baseball games with dad at the old stadium, your childhood home as you always remembered it, watching your child grow up. Instead, maybe we need to learn to move with the waves of our losses. Maybe we need to begin understanding that when you grieve, you don't actually let go or move on. You let in and move with. Move deeper into. You sit with the pain, however long it's taken to come to terms with it. You acknowledge that your world as you knew it has been radically changed and you will never go back to who or what you were before. 

Society may attempt to get you to turn the page as soon as possible - even go so far as to slap a disorder label on you if you don't! - but the hard truth is, you must grieve for as long as you need... even if it means you grieve in some way for a lifetime. Loss of all types slows you down and asks that its voice be heard. You can't silence it because it will find a way out. And the more you listen to this spinning world of ours that tells you it's time to get moving again, the less you will hear what your mourning actually is speaking to you. And it will be heard eventually... perhaps even in ways we'd rather it not. 

I'm slowly grasping that these surprising grief attacks - where the feelings rush back with a vengeance and we ask why we're suddenly not okay again and why we're not over this by now and why this keeps happening over and over - these are simply invitations to see healing in a new way. We'll be constantly disappointed if we keep placing limitations on how and when and why the recovery of life after loss ought to look and feel and be a certain way. It will only walk its own way... a way we're actually in control of. It will run its course, regardless of what we tell it to do or expect it to be. How God "fixes" it may not look like what we initially hoped for. But when this happens, do we lean into the moment? Do we accept its invitation, or do we try to run away? 

I know it's tiring sometimes when you feel like you've been sitting with the death of a dream or a person or a relationship or your health or any other tragic thing for far, far too long. When it seems like all you've done is mourn what might've been and what isn't now, the present seems riddled with the pain of all you've had to say goodbye to. When life feels more disconnected than it ever has and all you really want is to feel like there's something stable and normal once more. I get it. I've been there before many times, and I'm sort of there again now. But my best advice, however callous it may seem, is to just keep giving these moments their due. To keep welcoming them when they come and thanking them for showing you something new. 

Somehow, there are beautiful things to still be had amidst this mess. Even in the face of all the things you've lost, there is still hope to be found. The God who you're maybe even mad at right now for not giving you the ending you wanted is still a good God who, in time, will help you see that He knew best. You are still loved and kept and held even though your heart is breaking big time. This season of finality will fertilize something redemptive in your soul one day. Just maybe not right now. And that's okay.