Traveling down this road from grief to hope to happiness I find myself stumbling more often than not. Sometimes the trips are caused by other events in my life. Sometimes I stumble over obstacles I have placed in my own way. And there are other times I know I just need a nap. As I've mentioned in a previous blog post, grief is physically draining (see Luke 22:45). Thankfully I have had friends in my life who step up and try to fill the void caused by the impact of the grief meteor that ripped a hole in me. Faith, friends, and fellowship. Those are the things that pull me through.
I am forever grateful that God looks at the heart. But there is no doubt that man looks on the outside. On the outside your friend that is going through the grief event is probably not as far along as you think. And, in an attempt to be transparent as usual, I will confess that I get that way sometimes. But, if you are a fellow grief traveler, you often don't recognize how far you have actually come. Sometimes you need to look back and see that, although the end is nowhere in sight, the beginning is further away than it has ever been.
Have you ever noticed how much children grow the greater the time between visits? If you only see your nieces or nephews at Christmastime these words (or some to the same effect) will almost always be heard, "Oh my goodness! Look how big you've gotten! You must have grown a foot since I saw you last." That child did not have an instantaneous growth spurt. You just weren't there for their journey. If you are the parent of that child you are fully aware of how much they have grown, but you are probably not aware of the day to day changes. Grief is a lot like that. You who sit on the outside looking at us can see the growth. Those of us still facing the pain and loss every day wonder if we will ever get better.
You on the outside see us as we begin the journey and occasionally spot us along our path. You can see the race as a cross-country trip. The racers on the other hand feel like we are in a NASCAR event. We are seeing the same things over and over as we circle the track feeling like the finish line is simply another name for the starting line. You on the outside do not see that, in our quiet moments we cry out to Jesus and ask him why. We shake our fists at the storm like Lt. Dan and silently scream as we see that which reminds opus of what we lost.
So, what does someone need who is traveling down this road? I believe that every grief traveler needs something or someone to remind him or her just how far they have actually come. And they need a reason to get off the circular track and back onto a track that has them going ever forward.
When you have a person in your life that you love so deeply that even breathing without them is difficult it takes some reminders that it is worth moving forward. When you have more than one catastrophic event you need someone to point out your progress and offer encouragement. And, when you lose someone who was by your side through it all and was always ready to speak your love language, you need someone to scratch your back.
Then again, that last one may have just been for me.
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