When Grief is GOOD

How can it be on a ho-hum day,

preparing for anything but ‘this,’

out of the blue comes it to stay,

ending notions of bliss.

Wasted of reason – life’s a mess,

beyond is the numbing hue,

based is the treason – a tightened chest,

out the window life flew.

Winding down the lonely lane,

Stark and oh so dead;

where’s it gone – the life aspired,

the journey now just fled?

It doesn’t end like this just now,

not whilst we’re sprung and reprised,

life as it was may have ended,

but that’s not our state demised.

There is a place in this called “grief,”

that warrants a sharp held jibe,

we’ve journeyed to ‘us’ inside at last,

the place God’s never denied.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Grief is the beginning of life. This is not just a sad and sick statement. It’s the place we enter, finally, that takes us to our rawest beginnings and most basic imaginings. It feels so bad because we’ve rarely, if ever, been there.

An Important ‘Raw’ Life Lesson – Something We Best Learn

There is this thing about real life to be learned; the earlier the better (though many never taste it). This is the fact of peace in grief—both shallow and transitory grief and that which blindsides us for months, encroaching on the years. Life may not ever be the same again, but what it is, it’s now irreplaceable.

We have ‘entered’ ourselves and the truest knowledge of God—a place we cannot now lose; a place of truth. And comfort is there; it’s to be found by us in the ever-extant God of the universe who seeks us as we seek the Spirit of life in our desolate desperation.

The Gold at the Centre of Life

The gold in this destination of self is primary to the purpose of life. We’re at one with ourselves as we’re at one with our God—in this—the journey normally of strong denial, but now etched in a bold truth.

Here is the destination of the recovering drug addict or alcoholic, the divorcee, widow/er, prisoner, orphan and bankrupt business person. They’ve short-cut the road to heaven in this life. They’re catered for in as much as God avails to them principal access to the true kingdom that’s so often sought after—by the non-afflicted, yet not often at all found by them (until grief strikes hard—then comes their opportunity).

A life removed, or one altered beyond recognition, is now a life with perfect access to God.

Grief is good in this: we have direct access to the very open heart of God. To grieve, truly, is to be close to God.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.