When my Mum died in February 2004 I began a journey of dealing with weakness. Handling grief during that time has often felt long and painful. And sometimes I think all I’ve learnt about grief is that it’s long and it’s painful! People talk about there being a particular process to grief and I’ve seen myself through some of those stages (denial, anger etc…), but more and more it has felt confusing and complicated. When friends of mine have experienced grief I’ve not had the words or direction in how to support them. Grief, it seems, has no standards or pointers on the road to recovery.
I got married last July to Jon, who has been a huge support in dealing with my Mum’s death (mainly by not saying very much!). Jon lost his Dad when he was only 2 and I see a great amount of God’s redemption in our relationship, in our support of one another, and through our heart to be family to others.
But there is still so much brokenness and weakness for God to work in. As me and Jon have become a new family, we’ve also joined one another’s families. The truth is grief never affects only one person – the cataclysmic shift that death brings to a family is sometimes the hardest impact that it can have. Where I’ve known healing and breakthrough in my own personal loss, it is the brokenness of my family that exposes my anger, judgement and desperation. As I look at the consequences that death has had on our families I feel grief and sadness for what has been robbed from us. And in that place most often what is exposed is my own brokenness – my frustration with people’s insecurities, my judgement on how family ought to be, my anger towards others’ inability to love me how I want to be loved. Most frustrating of all is that I’m incapable of reaching out to them. In my own struggle, there is nothing left.
The thing is, loss exposes our weakness and our sinfulness. It doesn’t matter what the loss is, we all experience loss in something. Life throws things at us that surprise us, and are not always the way we expected or wanted them to be.
The one thing I’ve learnt is that God is the only one who can hold me up and through grief, I have known Him more than ever before. His faithfulness is true and, when those around me don’t understand or are dealing with their own grief, He whispers quietly, ‘I know, I know, I know.’ In those times His hope has resonated within my heart. In my weakness His grace is sufficient for me, His power will be made perfect (2 Cor.12:9) - and it’s never been so true, or so necessary, before.
