Grief is something none of us enters lightheartedly, or even willingly. Instead we usually try to avoid it. It’s painful, it’s exhausting, and we think it is going to overwhelm and drown us if we engage with it. Besides, grief is closely connected to pain and sorrow, whereas our hearts are all about finding happiness. However, there actually is a great good in engaging with grief and the losses we’ve experienced. What if, instead of running from it, we leaned into it and let it wash over us?
Unfortunately, we tend to operate out of a commitment to avoid the pain that comes with grief rather than choosing a way to live life well and relate to others richly in the midst of our sorrow. Reactive protection from pain is limiting, and avoidance of pain becomes all consuming. The territory of grief seems like a black hole to be avoided at all costs, when in truth it is a natural, necessary and intrinsic process of living life. For no one, absolutely no one, can avoid experiencing sorrow, sadness, and loss in this life.
So what would it be like to turn towards grief, to be curious about it, to engage with it and explore the depth of it? In sorrow and grief lies an invitation from God, the same God who promises and longs to be with us in all things, saying, “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.”(Isaiah 43:2) And Jesus invites us: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry burdens, and I will give you rest.”(Matthew11:28), Instead, we miss this call and choose to manage and mitigate our sorrows rather than go to Him with them.
What if we actually answer Jesus’ call and take our painful grief to Him? There is an intimacy and a depth of relationship that grows in the midst of our sorrow and pain when we go to Him. He promises to be with us and give us rest. Out of our darkness and pain, He calls to us, Come close. Bring your heavy heart to me. If we will quiet ourselves and turn to Him, He will draw us close, tenderly pour His love into us, and sit with us in our grief and pain as long as we will linger with Him.. God with us …It is in this painful place of grieving that He courts our broken hearts and tenderly knits our souls more deeply with His.
- Joanie Harris LPC
Advisory Council Member