Grief & Gratitude

 As I stood in the living room and stared at the seat he once occupied, I couldn't help but notice the emptiness. He was bigger than life to me. My uncle by choice. Always the life of the party. And every time you went to his house, with the exception of a warm, summer day, the wood stove was always going. Always warm and inviting. Just like him. Just like his heart. You felt at home every time you stepped in. Every time he gave you a hug. It's who he was. But now... oh, how the irony hit me like a ton of bricks: the first visit over to this house since his passing and the wood stove that once spoke all things cozy, was now cold and lifeless. The house had a slight chill. And so did my heart. It felt a bit less warm as well. A sadness pervading it as we gathered to share a meal while fully aware that we are all missing something special because he isn't here.   

Someone asked me the other day how I'm doing these days and my reply was, I'm grieving but also grateful. It's felt as though I've been holding both of those realities simultaneously as I've navigated the last several months. Moments of great joy and fulfillment and ones of tremendous sadness and loss. There hasn't been much of a middle ground for sometime - life has been all about living with these extremes and trying to be present to each of them. A social media post put it into the perfect words a couple weeks ago when it talked about living with "a heart that feels the weight of life but refuses to let go of God." That's pretty much been me in summary. Feeling like everything has been falling apart around me yet choosing to trust that somehow, all the collapsing is simply a mysterious falling together that only God can presently see. 

Standing there that afternoon, I had to ask God: what is happening? After all, I had just received even more surprising news - yet another massive life-change involving an extended family member that I was still reeling from and trying to process on top of my already intense grief. And, in my soul, I lamented to God that this is how it is. Why it feels like all the stable, certain places of my life and story are being touched in ways I would've never asked for... a step into further letting go. My heart's cry for so long, after all the loss and transition I've already endured for years, has been for some reprieve from the funerals and the goodbyes and the endings and the upheavals. Not an avoidance from the suffering per se, but just a period to regain my sense of being alive again in the face of so much brokenness. It was starting to feel like I was exiting this long valley for a little while but then, I found myself back there once more. 

I'm not bitter. 

I'm not angry.

I'm actually at peace. 

Strangely at peace. 

I think because I've faced so much loss and kept asking for the grace to keep turning my face toward that of the One who holds all things - even my pain - because of this... I have grown accustomed to releasing my grip on all that I have and know and instead, receiving the gift of Jesus as being all I need always. Of continuing to say yes to Him, even when what He's asking of me feels hard and hurtful, and trusting that even this will be made beautiful and good somehow. I've learned to sit in the mystery and offer praise and thanks even when part of my being is screaming a massive "no" and I just wish the story was different. I have been praying for awhile now for a season of life when what I hold in my hands could be kept longer. That the people I love and the memories I make could be ones I can grow and age with instead of feeling like the circle, the environment, the picture changes every little while. 

I am tired. 

That's it. 

Exhausted. 

I am contented in full. I have embraced the hard seasons and asked God to do His work. But I feel the reality of what the Lord Jesus Himself said in the Garden so long ago: "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41). My heart is surrendered to the sovereign choice of God in all of this. I cling to the truth that He never makes a mistake and that everything that is happening is occurring with His full knowledge. But the weight presses hard, and I long with everything inside me for brighter days. I have stumbled on so many divine reminders that the tears I've cried will not be wasted and the prayers I've prayed will be heard. But it's difficult. It's challenging to offer thanks in the form of a sacrifice - to come with nothing but a shattered spirit and know that God does not despise it. Rather, He welcomes it. 

These darkened winter days that feel so metaphoric for my soul right now are openings for me to practice the art of gratitude even while simultaneously holding grief. Just as the under-ground world has gone dormant but is simply resting until the Spring-call to re-emerge, I renew my hope and faith that yet another sorrowful season of my life will and can produce the same result. That a garden that presently looks dead is merely waiting for its moment to wake into life once again. Here, in the silence of this weighty time, comes the invitation to bring my bending-low form and rest beside the weary road. To lean hard into the solid shoulder of the Savior who walks this with me, every step. To dare to believe that He who is Himself "a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief" surely knows what I need in this hour and will administer to me such grace as I need to keep heading myself into the certain sunrise. 

Grief and gratitude. Two seemingly opposed realities that somehow, in the hands of God, yet co-exist. Therapy may call it the ability to hold two truths at the same time. The Bible may term it hope. I simply call it grace and choose to accept them both as gifts of equal treasure, knowing that even the dark offers its own kind of light.