Unresolved Grief - Day 98

Unresolved Grief
Day 98

Unresolved grief multiplies your problems. So express your emotions, share your story, get angry if you need to, and tell God how you really feel. The person you lost would not want you to become trapped in a continual cycle of grief. It is not a betrayal of that person for you to get better. Getting better means you move away from the disabling aspects of grief. You don't stop missing the person or feeling the hole left in your heart.

Cindy recalls her husband's words to her at some point after their daughter died: "Why don't you take where you've been and what you've done and go forward with it and be proud that you survived it? Reach out to others who might be in need, and just be thankful that we had her."

Your steps through the grieving process may be halting, baby steps. As difficult as this may be, God wants you to walk forward through your grief. Remember the words of David in Psalm 23:4: "even thought I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me."

"By his light I walked through darkness!" (Job 29:3).

God, shine Your light in every corner of my being and show me the areas of my grief that I need to face and resolve. Amen.

~ I feel like I am past this point in my journey, but I certainly do remember this well. I felt stuck. I felt like I was in a dark tunnel and the light was so very far away. I felt like I was sinking and I didn't know how to swim to the surface fast enough. It was a feeling that I remember well enough to know that I don't want to go back to that place. I felt like I was not my own person anymore. I felt like I was just paddling in the water, but that there was a weight tied to my feet and it was making it to where I didn't know if I was going to sink or be able to swim. It was a very uncomfortable place and not one that I want to visit again. I think that going through the process has prepared me for losses to come. After all, someone once told me that we are born dying. We grow and live and ultimately are born dying. It didn't make sense at first, but now I suppose it does. I also heard that we are just living from one crisis to another. The crisis being losing a loved one.  There seems to be much truth in that statement. It is just how we learn to handle it that we realize that we CAN and WILL survive the loss. I am forever changed and I don't remember the Amber before my losses. She was a naive and sheltered girl. She didn't appreciate all the people in her life and was unaware that life can and will change in the blink of an eye. I am enlightened and forever changed. My new reality isn't all roses and fluffy bears. My reality includes the hurt and losses. I am, however, much stronger and more appreciative of my family and friends than I was before. I am blessed and will not take that for granted anymore.