In grief there is unprecedented
and unparalleled poverty of spirit. Sadness like no other. A place of soul
where all is foreign. Where all anchors fail and where trust is tested and
torn. Sight of hope has vanished; felt realities of hope are vanquished.
In grief, hope is a problem.
Journeying through the topography
of loss is a journey of change. The only inevitable way through is via
acceptance to acceptance. The journey
is hazardous. The process is painful. But believe upon a purpose, because this
journey is full of meaning. We only realise it on the other side looking back.
Thankfully we have hope.
True hope can only be birthed
from traversing through a dark place. For, true hope cannot come from
ourselves. We receive it as a gift in pain. It is given to us by a gracious God
who reveals to us that He is real. Perhaps it was only when we plummeted that
we were desperate enough to need God enough to experience Him.
And then we break through into a
faith relatively few experience. It does not make us better than others, nor
more enlightened. It makes us suppler to compassion and empathy. We covet less.
And still there is another
journey to be taken — that
is to empathise and be compassionate not only with those who are suffering as
we have suffered, but to become patient with those who truly have no idea. This
journey proves just as hard to navigate. But we take heart out of this fact:
what we learn through grieving our losses, in the process of receiving God’s
healing grace, through applying a learned ruthlessness in being courageously honest
each step, is we can overcome anything.
Grief seems initially a sea of despair,
but through the redemption of recovery, God docks us in a harbour called Hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment