"Grief - where I am".....

Before starting this post, maybe I should have titled it, "Grief - where I am... at least for today". Because really, it changes - day to day, hour to hour, sometimes minute to minute. The pendulum in my heart swings fully from one side to the other in a matter of minutes. I think until you have experienced loss and become acquainted with grief, it is difficult to truly understand how a heart can experience such a complex array of emotions in a single minute. My life has become one terrific complex mess of emotions. Some days I am like an iron wall, unable to be moved. My head is held high, and my countenance displays a ray of sunshine. Other days, I feel more like a feather - one single blow would send me crumpling to my knees. And, then there are all of the other thousand metaphors in between I could use to describe myself on any given day. Some days I feel like I am treading water with a life vest that is leaking - clinging to anything that I can, all the while just trying to hold it together. I am required to keep walking and keep breathing when some days, I just want to stop both.

I can hardly wrap my head around the fact that my sister is not here anymore. I took Elijah Brooks to the cemetery for the first time about 2 weeks ago. As soon as we walked up the little hill, he stood there quietly and then started shaking his hands and rolling them over and over frantically saying, "Mommy, we have to start digging. We have to dig her out. Come on mommy, help me dig her out". I understand that feeling. I wish that the fact that she is spiritually present with me could bring me some solace, but truthfully, the fact that she is not earthly here with me anymore simply overshadows the other. Maybe in time I will find comfort in her spiritual presence in my life - but not today. Today, I simply want her physically present with me. Some days, I find myself fighting against the impossible, yet very real reality that she is gone. I even find myself at times with clenched fists - completely unaware that they are clenched and my knuckles are white - as if I am in a boxing match. I am not fighting God - I am fighting the evil, the sin, and the brokenness in this world.  I am also fighting the reality of my new life - I just want it to go away.

People told me it would get easier as time goes by. I am finding it actually gets harder. Every day it seems to hurt more, the reality that there are no more memories to be made with Elliot here with us, less people check on us as if life should be okay now since it's been 8 months,  there are expectations to be less sad and more joyful, expectations to "move on, Elliot would want you to", the reality of her children going through life without her (and they just started their lives), and the everyday list of things to do becomes so overwhelming all while grieving.  Some days I find myself telling someone that my sister died (writing that still sends shock waves through my body), and I truly have to stop, catch my breath and ask myself, "did this really happen? Who are all of these sympathy cards in a box for?"  My mind plays games with me alot - some days it seems like a nightmare, other days it is so painfully real. Did I really survive the chaos of this past year and I am really still required to keep breathing through it all?  I guess that is what survival is. The nightmares still come, and come frequently. I am praying that God will heal me from them, because I do not believe they are from God. But take all of the emotions that make up a nightmare - and that's what I suffer from in the darkness of the night. But, I am not sure a person can watch what we had to witness in Elliot's suffering, and not suffer themselves. I feel in many ways I have to heal not only from her physical departure from our lives, but also from the suffering I had to witness.  Some days I really have to pray the despair out of me - it is hard not be despairing at times. I think it's quite okay to be honest with God and tell Him exactly how we feel - all the while, clinging to His TRUTH, and relying on Him to pull me out of the pit of despair. He understands pain. He was acquainted with grief. He understands. I know I am healing alittle bit at a time, very slowly. And for that, I am thankful.

I was having a conversation with someone recently who is also experiencing grief. I was explaining alittle bit about where I feel like I am in this process of grieving. I am having a particularly difficult night tonight, so reading what I wrote just 2 weeks ago is encouraging to my weary spirit this night. This is what I mean about my grief fluctuating like the wind - I truly have no idea where I am on the pendulum on any given day. Tonight, I feel like punching a wall. Yet, I read my own words just a few weeks ago and I was at a completely different place.  It really is a step forward, a step back, a step forward, a step back.  Here are my words a few weeks ago:

If I am being really honest, after 8 months of hard grieving (and I have a LONG way to go still), I am just now beginning to be able to be hopeful again. I am just now beginning to be able to truly believe and hold fast to the truths of Scripture as it relates to death. Someone once said, "death blocks the sunshine, but the sun is still shining".   Only now, after 8 months, can I say that I truly believe that. Elliot's suffering and death nearly threatened to undo me, but God has not let me go. He continues to extend mercy upon mercy, grace upon grace, and gently pulls me out of the pit - I come up for air, breathe deeply, grab hold of Him tighter than I ever have before, maybe even taste abit of joy, before sinking once again......, and the cycle continues.  It is maddening and frustrating - but I am allowing myself to go through it all, asking the hard questions, questioning what I probably shouldn't be questioning, and healing alittle bit at a time all the while. The things that people would tell me in the beginning about God's view of death (albeit, it was TRUTH), just stabbed me right through the heart. It wasn't comforting to me at all, but for some reason more painful. I didn't want to hear it. I was a broken woman with a broken heart and even TRUTH couldn't comfort. I felt robbed. I felt cheated. I just wanted my sister back.  And now, I am still a broken woman with a very broken heart - but I am a hopefully broken woman.  Even as I type these words, I am stunned that I can even type that.  This is a long and very painful road - and I have only started my journey. I have only begun the rest of my life without Elliot here. But, I can honestly say that now I am grieving with hope - I couldn't say that even a month ago.  Everything Scripture says about victory over death, that we will be reunited again, that death for a believer is victorious etc......., well, it's what I know to be true and what I believe. It's not necessarily how I feel, but believing this is slowly changing the way that I feel.

I really do feel like these are 2 separate posts - one despairing, and one hopeful. I am being honest with my emotions. I am a Believer whose hope is found in nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. But, I am also a human being who has suffered a profound loss. I am very thankful this night that my relationship with God, and who I am in Christ, does not depend on how I feel on any given day. My relationship with Him cannot be based on my own fluctuating emotions - but on what Scripture promises - regardless of how I "feel". 

I suppose maybe that's why I feel like I can relate to David's writings in the Psalms so well. He is so honest with his hurt, his pain, his confusion, and his fear. But what I love about David, is that he always ends his writings with the words, "YET" or "STILL"......, even through all that he was going through, he was still able to praise God. By His grace, I will keep praising Him. I will keep declaring His goodness to anyone who will listen. I will keep telling my children and my nieces and nephews that God is GOOD, fully GOOD. I will keep trusting and believing that somehow in some mysterious way, God is using all of this to sanctify me and He will redeem it all one day. This won't change the hurt in my heart, but it will keep me moving forward and keep me breathing. I pray that one day we will begin to thrive again, not just survive. 

So, while I feel like fighting tonight - I will remove my boxing gloves, and will concede this fight. I will surrender to the ONE who promises that all things will work together for my good, and who promises to be close to the brokenhearted, who promises that He is catching every one of my tears in a bottle, who promises that He loves me incomprehensibly more than I can imagine, who knows what it feels like to hurt, who promises never to leave me nor forsake me, and who promises that He will not break a bruised reed or snuff out a faintly burning wick.  I surrender to the One who made my heart, and who knows how to heal it. I surrender to Jesus Christ, trusting and believing in His promises of redemption, even when this heart is broken in two. I will trust Him in this fog. I know He is still with me, and I believe I will one day know in full, what I know only now in part. 

This is where I am......, at least for today.