grief and community

Recently, I've been reading Small Victories by Anne Lamott.  I absolutely adore Anne's writing style. Real, raw, honest, irreverent, hilarious.  The second chapter of her book, entitled "Ladders", makes some excellent points about the process of grief.  She had recently lost her best friend to a battle with breast cancer, and was describing her time of grief:

"All those years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly and as privately as possible.  But what I've discovered since is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief....I'm pretty sure that only by experiencing that ocean of sadness in a naked and immediate way do we come to be healed -- which is to say, we come to experience life with a real sense of presence and spaciousness and peace."

We shut ourselves up into the privacy of our homes and lock our hearts to the people around us because we feel like that is what will heal us again.  We fear letting people in and them seeing that we're hurting.  We feel isolation is what we need.

That is a LIE.

We need community.  Those people we can fully share our hearts with.  Let the grieving happen when it comes, wherever you are.  Do the ugly cry if you have to.  If they're real friends, they will still (hopefully) talk to you after they've seen the terrifying, elusive ugly cry.  Allow the people around you to be a balm for your weary, torn up soul.  We were not created to do things alone, but to walk alongside each other and say, "I'm with you".

I have one sweet friend right now who always will say something to the extent of, "This sucks.  I am with you".  There's never pressure to talk about it.  Never any sort of expectation.  That's freedom in friendship; to simply be with each other.

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." - Galatians 6:2

There's something about the knowledge that you are not alone that allows some of the weight of burden to fall off.

Grief is heavy.  It is hard.  It hits us in the most inconvenient and unexpected moments.  But community is required to get through.  Never do it alone.  Don't shut people out.  Let the walls fall down, bear your soul to those who care for you.

I'm also in the process of re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia.  Near the end of The Magicians Nephew, Aslan has just created Narnia and has tasked Digory with bringing him a fruit to protect the land.  Digory is dealing with the near loss of his ill mother and requests some sort of healing from Aslan.

"'But please, please - won't you - can't you give me something that will cure Mother?'...Great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes...'My son, my son,' said Aslan.  'I know.  Grief is great.  Only you and I in this land know that yet.  Let us be good to one another'."

It reminds me that God recognizes our pain and our grief.  He recognizes that we are hurting so deeply.  He sees it with tears in his eyes, and says "my son.  my son.  i know".  We must remind ourselves that though everything that happens is a part of God's plan, it doesn't mean He is happy when we hurt.  His heart breaks along with ours.  We are his dear children that He loves so much, and to see us in pain hurts Him.  But just as in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Eustace has turned into a dragon, we cannot remove our own scales.  He must remove them for us.  And the purification of our lives stings.  But we come out on the other side with a new mindset, new strength, and new faith.

I'm not one of those people that can say "thank you" to the hard things that God allows us to go through.  The things themselves hurt immensely.  BUT.  I can say thank you to what the other side will look like.  The purification, sanctification, strengthening.  There is nothing wrong with a prayer that goes like, "God, this absolutely sucks.  And I don't understand what you are doing and why you are doing it.  But I trust that you have a plan."

As Christians, we get caught up in cliches.  The worst being, "God will never give you more than you can handle".

FALSE.  FALSE.  FALSE.

I would like to know who the heck said that first.  It is an untruth that we have allowed ourselves to believe for far too long.

If that were true, life would be easy.  There would be no pain.  But there would also be no cleansing of ourselves and our souls.  The truth in that statement lies in two extra words.  "God will never give you more than you can handle WITHOUT HIM."  Even so, it is no guarantee that anything will be easy.  It merely means that we can survive it.

So we have seasons.  Some joyful, some painful.  But through the seasons we learn and are transformed into the people we were meant to be.  So for that, I can say "thank you".





Don't do it alone.