harps//strings

How long can I explore these lands? I am at once struck by more questions of grief when I thought I had come to a road’s end. What I thought to be a single path often feels like an ever-winding and ever-branching one. A labyrinth where one merges with old roads I have already traversed. People tell me it is all progress. I say it is vexingly exhausting.

It is indeed a very tiresome and frustrating process. We all eventually come face to face with it. However, I believe a majority of the exhaustion comes from the questions. Old ones and new ones that demand our attention. Bread crumbs that are laid down for us to follow. Clues that speak of a bigger story. Quite possibly an encouragement for us to follow where it leads us. In fairytales, the breadcrumbs typically always lead us back home or, at the very least, a semblance of it. But I believe we have strayed too far off course to make the journey home easy. Maybe it was never meant to be. Indeed, I acknowledge the burdensome choice to follow those breadcrumbs. I acknowledge the immense time and energy it demands. It is a choice of weight and importance. And it is a choice we all have to make.

Why not make a home where we currently stand? No one would blame us, right? Would it not be easier for things to stay as they are and build a new home here? We spare ourselves the difficult journey home, we spare ourselves the hardship and work, and we spare ourselves the inevitable pain and injury. But it is the difference between an Egypt and a Promised Land.

We are, after all, taught that we are all travelers. All nomads and sojourners, made for the odyssey. But even if we explore grief in its fullest entirety, would it matter? I suppose we should ask ourselves another question. Where do we want to make our home?

The fact remains that we will inevitably experience loss. And grief…well, grief will inevitably leave behind its breadcrumbs. For some of us, this is our current reality. Whether we get the answers or not, we will continue to live in this tension. It is not something we can escape. Shifts in seasons we cannot avoid. Some live to see the glory, the shining of His face. But the rest of us see His back. Some experience breakthroughs and that is their testimony. But some will still bury their dead and that is theirs. A mystery that will never reveal itself in a lifetime and a journey that requires of us our entire life.

Yet I find myself never denying the worth of it. Maybe we can find even some comfort and relief from it. Though I am destroyed, as we all eventually are, I find that the journey to the answer is meaningful and full of purpose. I often find myself angry that it is the way it is. Angry that I still believe Him to be worthy. But I forget that He too, paid with His entirety. He too, has paid the same cost we have.

He followed the same breadcrumbs and made the same long journey we do.

Shall I walk His path even if it is the harder one? Shall I choose the harder thing and follow the breadcrumbs? It seems that I will. In fact, I think I desire it. They say home is where the heart is. Surely, it is also where He will be…with her. And I am oh so desperate to see her. I am promised, by the One who made that journey first, that I eventually will. But it is frustratingly tiresome to not know for sure.

I suppose the strength to keep moving is the grace that is often hidden in plain sight. It feels as if it is just beyond my reach, in my peripheral, showing itself just enough to let me know it’s there. How annoyingly like Him. Comforting and frustrating, all at the same time. I suppose the choice to hold on to that promise of reunion is faith. It feels small. It feels unimportant. But He did say mountains can be moved with something so small. I will just have to take His word for it.

So the battle continues and rages on. Prayers we once uttered reappear again in our bated breaths. We stand and walk with just enough strength to take it slow. Each precious step is a decision to follow grief back home. Each precious step reminds me of one thing:

If we are true to our faith, if we believe Him to be who He says He is, then His glory is greater than our relief.