Grace & Grieving

Death is no stranger to the human family, yet grief and the grieving process remain so often misunderstood and unrecognized. When the grief is about the loss of life or presence of a person who has brought us much pain, it is both alarming, surprising, and a painful reminder that loss often calls for a knowledge of our own purpose in life and the truth that we are still responsible for our own health and wellness regardless of what wrongs others may have committed against us.

When someone does evil towards us and is consistent in that pattern, it is surprising that their demise and even their death does not bring about deep joy, although there may be considerable relief. It is a bag of mixed blessing where we must spend some time processing what it is like to live life now with what is no longer the continuous action of aggression against us.      We come to know quiet and solitude which had been strangers again and it almost seems like they are shadows from long ago.

 The words may not sink in for anyone else. But for me, normalcy was almost immediate. I have had an open heart since after losing him. Which was the thrust of this person’s anger or retribution against me. The scorn heaped upon me since that time have been open wounds that I’ve learned to live with. It was a constant barrage of negativity that I still live with because they influenced others.

Yet, the promises found in Psalms 37 which brought much comfort in 2005 are true again and are more vivid than ever. This time however, there is more permanence. Never will a strike come from that source again and in that I take solace.

I found that in this strange peace, I can consider the act of forgiveness. The forgiveness sought may be in the unkind thoughts towards me and the actions that followed those unkind thoughts. Such actions included affecting my career,my relationships, and my finances among other things. But there was always that boomerang affect. Some I knew about, the last of which I did not.

The soul of the individual I do not know what God will do with. I think I care more than I’d like to admit. I often find myself excusing some pretty ugly things that God has made me aware of. What I do know is that the person he had for me is still his intended and while things are done very differently in Paradise, our relationship will be one where it can still have intimacy and enjoyment. I get previews of it now.

The victory for now is that I am neither in poverty or defeat. I am never alive or dead if I am standing beside God and my faith as belonging to a certain sect was truly tried and lost. Still I am God’s sheep. As long as I remain as a flame that he breathes into every morning, I am here. Sometimes it is enough to know that grief is acknowledging loss not always with sadness but a return to normal living even when normalcy is the letting go of decades of antagonistic, socialized and institutional abuse against me, and a return to life without continuous slander.