harps//strings

Oftentimes, we see or hear words that do not make any sense to us. We recall them over and over again and we cannot comprehend what it means. We think we know. We see the definition. And logically, it may have been natural for it to be the way it is. But there is a deeper, not yet understood thing that lies beneath it all. A question, maybe. Perhaps a feeling that tugs at us from the inside and will not let go until we finally perceive it. Almost a present irony that always hangs in the air wherever you go. Opposites but true. Simultaneous but separate. It is a mystery. And in this life, mysteries usually stay mysterious. So it keeps tugging and tugging until you make peace with the unanswerable. Grief, I think, follows this same pattern. 

It is usually in the aftermath of loss that grief manifests itself. A loss of self, a child, a parent. A cherished thing. And grief, when we boil it down, is one of the greatest mysteries. We ask ‘Why?’ and we ask it often. To God, or whoever we believe in at the moment. Mostly, to ourselves, maybe. We ask and we usually don’t get a response. If we do, seldom is it a response we can understand… or accept. So we keep asking because it keeps tugging at us. Because the real answer will not come until the end, not until we enter the mystery for ourselves. 

As time flows on we may feel that pull less and less, but it never goes away. When it does finally come, all the emotions and memories we thought buried and long forgotten come bubbling up to the surface. We recall what we were doing at the time loss struck us down. Usually something mundane, sometimes important. But it all becomes significant nonetheless. 

We are now marked by them. We realize the tears and ache never really go away, not really. It will stay with us until our last breath, tugging and pulling. Just like the questions we ask. Always reminding us. And there is a sense of permanence to what happened; something finite and established. Much like a line drawn in the sand. This is all we know. 

This is it. 

One who has experienced grief can say it is a painful ordeal. One may even think it is more painful than the loss itself. The uneasiness. The disorientation. The exhaustion. No one ever said that grief would be exhausting. More than the sadness and tears. After the sadness gives way to stillness, after there are no more tears to be shed, exhaustion is the only thing left in the wake. It is the only thing I know that drains both the body and the soul in its entirety; the feeling of being emptied. But those who have experienced grief can also say it is why they are alive. 

I should be careful about how I move forward in this exploration of grief. Many of us experience it differently. This is, after all, just my wanderings in the dark. I write to try and understand this mystery myself. I too, choose to ask the questions. I am beginning to believe grief is foreign. Foreign because I do not believe grief originates from man, just as much as love does not originate from him. Nor do I believe it is a desire of God. Maybe in His great understanding and vision, He fully designed and thoroughly created it. However, I do not believe it to be His desire. A physician does not desire illness in the world but he is trained to cure it if need be. 

Merely a result of brokenness. Medicine for ripples that came from a self-inflicted wound that should have never happened, but inevitably would. As is the price for true freedom and choice I suppose.

It seems grief was a thing He found worth it for the sake of our freedom and choice. Just as grace and redemption are. Just as He, himself, is subject to. The cross, indeed, is where He met all three. Grief, however, is also a complicated thing. Like medicine, it too, can be abused. It, too, can be ignored. Just as grace and redemption can be. And while we all are bound to come face to face with grief, as it knocks on our door, it is our choice on the dosage taken. Too much can be poison. Not enough can be just as fatal. One cannot know for sure without the assistance of a knowledgeable physician. 

So I wonder, is grief such a terrible thing? 

If our tears and sadness held our anger and hatred, would it not be best to be emptied? The uneasiness and disorientation. The exhaustion, which came at the beginning and meets us at the very end. Is it not best to sit and rest? Grief certainly forces us to when it is all said and done. In its mystery, I suspect grief is just another aspect of God. A much higher thing that we do not fully understand. Certainly, an aspect that is condemned more than loved. But at the very least, it is from Him. If the loss is from the enemy, then surely the grief that comes after is of the Lord. For one takes and steals. And the other gives and heals. 

It knocks the same way He does, for grief is a choice just as much as love is. It certainly is our choice to open the door or not and it is certainly our choice to face and reconcile with it. It beckons us to truth and peace just as He does, for grief challenges us to be present and not deny ourselves of feeling. And it heals just as He does, for grief is the only thing that can fill the cracks the loss has created. 

In my experience, He certainly never likes to leave us where He found us. He refuses to. 

A grace and permission, perhaps. The permission to be emptied and rest. To feel what we feel in its entirety with no strings attached. The grace to be as you are and see things as it is. And most importantly, the permission and grace to not replace what was lost. 

So perhaps grief, when fully received, is peace known by another name. A peace that is not stillness, but a raw validity. Not a past fixation, but a forward gaze. Authenticity and peace to just be. An acknowledgment of what is and what is to come. 

I believe it to be a glimpse of eternity. For if the cross is the peak at which grief rests, redemption and grace will surely meet us at the empty tomb. Grief for the world lost moved our Jesus to etch eternity into the impermanence. We too, have followed in the steps of our savior to a lesser degree. While the loss takes away from us, grief is what etches them into the everlasting. Our memories and moments; our tears and our healings that will surely follow. Even His hands and feet kept the scars of grief and death. For what was lost and what still is, indeed, are the marks of where our endings meet His endless.