“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer
great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their
grief and heals them.”
— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
It is difficult, in the throes of acute loss, to reconcile how life
that’s suddenly gone so bad could possibly end up so good again, but that is
our hope. We may simply want things back as they were. For the pain to abate.
The experience of grief, which is a suffering we never imagined
possible, makes us regret that we took for granted the ‘normal’ life. Our
craving is to be back there.
In grief, we figure that we should hope for a return to a life
of normalcy. Some days we cannot see our way there — it feels like the end of
the road. Other days there are glimpses of healing and hope for not simply
recovery but restoration. But, for an inordinate time, the doppelganger of anxiety
and depression hangs like billows over us.
But afterwards, having traversed the murky elements, having lost
vision of hope so many times, after we’ve felt recovered many times when we
weren’t, we reach the conclusion that what broke our heart, love, was the key
to the restoration of our heart. When we come to grief’s conclusion we
understand more about ourselves, life, and God.
***
When grief casts us, outbound of
loss,
Into a life consumed by chaotic dross,
We find God’s help becomes present from
above,
Shown in us through faith so we’re returned to His love.
***
Grief forces us to confront truth, and, having been set free by
what broke us, we become bigger, not smaller, persons.
Grief forces us to choose between faith and a combination of denial,
anger, and bargaining.
Then we learn an indispensable lesson:
When faith is chosen in adversity, resilience becomes the path
back to wellbeing.
In the final analysis, love’s heart that was once broken by loss
is restored to love again by the heart compelled to love.
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