As I am returning to my blog, I found a draft I hadn’t completed or posted yet, which I began writing after Mary passed away (Fall 2009). It rings ever more true in light of the additional losses I have experienced this past year. Here it is (original blog date circa Sept 6, 2009)…
Dealing with grief isn’t easy.
For anyone.
It’s obvious for the one dealing with the loss.
But it isn’t easy for those who seek to support the one in mourning, either.
Those around don’t know quite what to say
quite how to respond
quite how to approach the griever.
We want to offer words of encouragement.
Words of comfort.
Words of hope.
Words which we tell each other…
we tell ourselves
…in a desperate attempt to
relieve the immense pain and deep sorrow of loss.
“She’s in a better place.”
“She’s not suffering anymore.”
“We’ll see her again someday.”
“She knew how much you loved her.”
“What a blessing you gave her.”
“You did all you could.”
Words that are true
…words that make logical and biblical sense…
yet words that seem to reduce to platitudes
in the emptiness that was once filled with her presence.
Naturally, as so many do,
we recount every moment of the past couple of months
especially the past several weeks.
We second guess everything,
wish we could do things differently,
wish we could do more.
We wonder if we did enough,
if we made the right decisions,
if we spent enough time,
if we showed enough love.
I’ve been thinking about why.
Why do we second-guess?
Why, when we know we did all we could, do we still question ourselves?
Why do we speak words that are unable to fill the void that exists?
Why do we try to make ourselves, and others, feel better?
Early yesterday morning, the answer came to me.
Helplessness.
It’s easier for us to deal with guilt than with helplessness.
Guilt lets us feel like we are in control:
because if there was something we could have done differently,
we could have changed the outcome.
The truth is, we couldn’t change the outcome.
We couldn’t change the reality of what was to come.
We couldn’t have known that this would be the last day,
the last time we would talk to her,
the last time we would tuck her in to bed,
the last time we would say goodnight.
The truth is much more difficult to accept.
The truth is, we have no power over death.
We are absolutely helpless to it.
We cannot escape the harsh reality that in this world, each of us will ultimately succumb to it.
We are utterly vulnerable to it…helpless.
Helplessness requires complete surrender…and that is the toughest part of all.
Helplessness requires that we cry out for rescue, that we completely depend on Someone else for our salvation from the despair, from the destruction, from the unbearable sadness.
“But it’s God’s will. He has a plan…” is something we often tell ourselves…as if it will transform our sorrow into joy.
But it’s not true. Death was not part of God’s design.
He created us to be eternal.
He created us to be in relationship.
Death is the terrible consequence of the Fall…
severing our earthly relationships,
stinging our hearts with sadness and fear,
deepening the abyss into which we fall further and further,
widening the chasm between us and God,
leaving us utterly helpless.
Death is the enemy.
But God does have a plan.
He came to defeat Death.
To make it His footstool.
To put it to final death.
The only control we do have is whether to cry out in surrender to the only One who can provide rescue
or cling to that which is passing away.
