Embracing grieving and loss to live out loud

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matt. 5:4)

As many of you know, I have been researching, reminiscing and blogging about my brother Andy's life.  He passed away to be with God 18 years ago.  That was a long time ago.

And I am touched by many of your comments and emails as you share your sorrows and griefs.  Many of you have shared that you have bottled up grief and loss for years.  And I hear a recurrent question

WHY are you doing this, Sandy?

I am embracing grieving and loss.  I feel the need to.  A couple of months ago I began to think of my brother and realized I had began to forget his voice, his character, his mannerisms...even his face.  And it was not a good feeling.  It did not feel right.  I began to wished I had some of these memories written down so that I could remember and so that others could remember too, including my own children.

As I embarked on a journey through memory lane I realized the journey was going to be tough.  Did I cry?  You bet.  Did I laugh too?  Even more!  Was I encouraged?  Very much so.  Did God speak to me during the journey?  Loud and clear.

I think sometimes we avoid grieving and loss for fear that we will be stuck by it.  We see it as an interruption to living life to the fullest - dare I say we even see it as a hindrance to serving God.  We are afraid of loss but even more petrified of grieving.

We can kid ourselves in thinking that loss is an exception in life.  An obstacle to continuing to live.  It is not...loss is happening all around us, big or small, private or public, sudden or gradual.  Loss is loss.  It is a norm in life.  It is universal.  

Horrible events in our lives can either break us or make us better people.  Whether we choose to run away from it or face it, it will never leave us the same person.  But I believe grieving, feeling, facing loss, are things God intends to use to make us more real, people that will connect with Him and others less superficially and more deeply.

I believe I did mourn Andy's loss 18 years ago.  But I think what I did not do fully was to absorb the loss into my life until it became part of my life.  Gerald L. Sittser, in A Grace Disguised:  How the Soul Grows through Loss says it well:  "Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it"

So many of us have left unattended our losses over time, kidding ourselves that it's in the past. Others think we manage it without realizing the sorrow was still eating us alive.  Or still others are simply running away from it.  Peter Scazzero, in The Emotionally Healthy Church says it right, "Unattended over time, [sorrow] prevents us from entering into walking freely and honestly with God and others"

....and it's not just one big sorrow...as I read Peter Scazzero's book, I realize I had my share of sorrows.  I have grieved over some and have not over others.  Perhaps you share some of the same ones, or can add to this list:

- Graduating from High School/College - losing my friends as I "moved on" to another city
- My youthful skin is beginning to wrinkle with age.
- Losing friends who no longer want to be friends with me.
- Leadership changes in my church
- The end of a ministry I was involved in
- My church starts to build a new building
- Grandma dying
- Our guinea pig dying
- A miscarriage
- Andy's death
- People I care about decide to leave from church

It can be scary to think of the lack of control you might have if you allow yourself to feel sorrow, loss, anger, sadness and even doubts about God.  I remember many times being so angry at God for some of the losses in the list above.  And once you open this part of your heart, sometimes you fear you may not be able to shut it.  You begin to FEEL so much it almost overwhelms you.

But I believe if we truly want to grow, if we truly want to experience God's love in its entirety, if we want to be spiritually and emotionally healthy, if we want to feel ALIVE, there is no other way but to embrace these losses with God.  Otherwise, these things will always cause blockages in our life.

But it's not a one day thing - this embracing sorrow and loss business.  It is a journey - and I have referred to it as such in many previous blog entries.  Yes, own to the pain first.  But understand this - the deeper the wound, the longer the journey.

Some of you asked me, But I don't know how to do this?


My friend, I don't know either!  All I know is I believe with all my heart that God wants us to embrace grief and loss to enlarge our hearts.  I know that He will be with me during the entire journey.  I know He will heal the heart.  I know I need to feel and grieve in order to move on and live God's destiny for me in the fullest, in the healthiest, and in the most meaningful way.

I do not want to dwell in the past.

But I do not want to move onto the future with blockages in my heart either.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens" [including] "a time to mourn" (Eccl. 3:1,4)  To reject God's seasons for grief and sadness as they come to us is to live only half of our lives.  What makes this particularly tragic is that Jesus Christ came to set us free to engage life fully, not escape from its reality ~ Peter Scazzero, in The Emotionally Healthy Church

Give yourself permission to feel.

Clear that blockage.

Experience healing and joy.

Begin to live!