Completion?

 So they say the number seven represents a sort of completion: a bridge or gateway to a new phase of harmony, divine perfection, and understanding. The biblical and Hebraic scholars believed this and so did ancients of other religions. Seven seems to indicate a season of shifting - a simultaneous ending and beginning all at once that symbolize the fulfillment of a spiritual journey and the start of a fresh chapter of wholeness and balance. But I'm sitting here wondering how that applies to grief. I can understand that significance when it comes to something positive, yet is it even possible that one can experience this transitional movement after carrying deep sorrow for that same length of time? 

It's been seven years now since I posted on this very blog that my best friend and the brother I'd never had was gone. One late night discovery of his obituary and I was undone. I will forever remember where I was standing in the house when I saw the news and the endless tears that followed... sobs escaping my lips as I cried myself to sleep that night and struggled to believe that this was true. And so began a journey of mourning that I never would've asked for but knew I had no choice but to accept. Many did not understand the kind of grief I carried for the better part of three years. For the most part, I walked through it alone. Only a choice few chose to enter that space of pain with me and sit in the ashes of what was left of a friendship that changed my life. 

When I look back on that day, part of me feels like it's been the longest seven years of my life. So much loss surrounded the loss of my Alex, layering grief on grief and compounding all of the sadness that I felt. Those were some of the darkest days I have ever lived through. Without question. But it's also strange to feel like those seven years kind of flew by in a weird way. It seems like forever ago but also just yesterday... all at the same time. And as I pass this anniversary, I wonder what it is that might be both ending and beginning at this place in the path. 

How can you believe that something is being completed when all you feel is an eternal incompleteness resulting from your loss?

I have asked God many times why it went this way. Sometimes I've received little answers and confirmations, sometimes not. I think there will always be a certain level of unknown to this story. I guess in grief there always sort of is. But even in the mystery, there is a certain strength that has emerged in my life for having walked through this chapter. For all the heartache that it caused, I can strangely say that it has contributed to the wholeness and healing of my life even though it broke me along the way. In the mind of the Great Physician, perhaps this is somehow His way of bringing us closer to grace and hope - in allowing us to find ourselves in valleys so deep that we have no option but to take His hand and bravely take the next step through it. And in this process, we are reborn and remade. 

I think of how it says that "He who began a good work in you will see it through to completion" (Phil. 1:6) and believe in my soul that all these years of seemingly endless goodbyes and letting go have somehow led me to a place where I trust God with anything. That the wounds have done their good work and this is part of how I've been brought to this space of utter dependence on Him for the ability to move forward, to forgive, to turn loose, to still choose to say that He does all things well. 

So maybe the balance, the fulfillment, the harmony they say occurs at this seven year mark feels like continuing to hold your sorrow and simultaneously gripping the hand of God. Of being able to look back and say that "it is well" even if this loss nearly tore my heart in two. Maybe this looks like forever wanting to hug your best friend one more time or have him call you on the phone but also resting in the fact that God mysteriously knew this story was best. Maybe the transitional movement is learning how to savor more, to relax into the journey and receive both the happy and the hard with equal grace. To trust that God never leaves anything half-done and that this too will be made beautiful in the gentle hands of the One who Himself was acquainted with grief. 

Seven years have passed and with them, a new version of me has emerged. Like a seed that has been broken in order to produce fresh life, my spirit has come out of this darkness and birthed something sacred that I likely would've missed had God not asked me to let go and say goodbye. Thus, I can say that the pain of these years has not been wasted. The space I have been moved to in my life has shown me beautiful things even in the face of great loss. And when I think of my Alex, that transformation is exactly what he would've wanted.