Stealing Glory from Grief
If you’ve experienced grief, you know it’s different from hurt feelings or sadness. Hurt and sadness are on the inside, like a bruise on the bone that twinges when you brush against a memory, or see someone that reminds you of a difficult time. Grief however is on the outside, like being lost at sea. Wave after wave you gasp for air, but the waves just keep coming, until eventually even the simplest things become a struggle. Climbing out of bed feels like climbing a mountain. Making conversation, feels like giving a Ted talk. When grief enters your life, every day is reduced to a series of endurances, and nothing comes easy.
I know this because 10 years ago I found myself at the edge of that sea, staring into the expanse and wondering if I would make it to the other side. My wife and I had just moved to Kansas City from Texas. We lived in a little loft across the street from the Folgers factory, so every morning was Folgers in our living room, our hallway, the parking lot; pretty much anywhere but our cup. #Starbucks. We’d been there about a month, and Christmas was in full force. I was managing a Radio Shack and life seemed like it was finally starting to come together. We had celebrated our first anniversary a couple of days after we arrived; that first year had been tough. We’d faced everything from layoffs to eviction, but now in a new place, far from any family or history, it felt like we’d finally found our path.
On Christmas Eve the snow was so heavy the street signs were half their regular height, but that didn’t seem to deter the last minute shoppers. This was the first Christmas I’d been away from my family, so when my Dad called it was a welcome interruption. Unfortunately, I was trying to close the store, so I told him I’d give him a call in a couple of hours. Before I had the chance to make that call however I got another call, this time from my brother. He explained to me that my parents and grandmother were on their way home when they hit an ice patch and slid into an oncoming car.
Now when you experience something like this, your brain has trouble processing it. You think, this is one of those things that happens to other people, but it just never occurs to you that it could happen to you. No matter how sober minded you try to be about life, when death comes knocking it’s like a new version of reality is introduced, and there’s no going back. I must have been in shock, because I asked him if I’d missed the punch line, I honestly thought he was telling a bad joke. But there was no punchline. He proceeded to tell me that my Dad and Grandmother hadn’t made it, and my mom wasn’t looking promising.
As it started to sink in that this was really happening, it was like a bomb went off, hurling a shockwave of feelings, thoughts and questions right at me. Yet somehow, right before the wave made overtook me it was like God paused time. As I stood there in my office surrounded by fragments of pain, confusion, anger, and questions, I saw what could only be described as a vision. Before me there was a dark path, like an abyss, and a light path. Not like a portal opened up in my stockroom, nothing so sci-fi; but it was more than a metaphor. It was as though God was allowing me to see the spiritual reality of what was happening in that moment. As I stood there staring, I felt drawn to the abyss. It was as though all of my questions, anger, accusations and pain were somehow in that abyss. It called out to me, promising validation; it had a strange comfort to it, a reasonableness even.
The light path on the other hand had nothing but a road lined with trees, like looking out the window of a car on a Saturday afternoon. There was no draw or whisper, just a kind of clarity that’s difficult to describe. As I stood there something welled up in my soul, and looking to my ceiling I sort of blurted out “God, this doesn’t change anything between you and I. No matter what happens next, we’re good”. It seems trite in hindsight, but in the moment it was the most honest thing I could muster. As soon as the words left my mouth, the abyss seemed to close up on itself, and the light path expanded until it faded into the light in my office. And just like that the paths were gone. By the nights end, so was my mom.
Nearly a decade later I feel like the Lord has finally given me some insight into what I saw that night. The dark path was a relationship with grief, and the light path a relationship with Jesus. The dark path seemed comforting because grief tells you everything you feel is valid, your anger is valid, your sadness is appropriate, your demands of God are just; but with that validation, it also tells you that your future is now irreparably damaged, and to receive its comfort you have to receive its lies. Grief will tell you how your fathers never going to see your sons’ first step, and how your mother is never going to see you become the man she always knew you could be. It says every Christmas is ruined because you will have to relive this night through every decoration and holiday affair. Grief will literally steal your future by turning the moments you most looked forward to sharing with your loved ones, into reasons to mourn their absence. It will project your entire future before you, and turn every hope you had into an open grave; until your life becomes nothing but a series of funerals. Then, after stealing your future, grief will make you resent your memories, until even the happy times you have left, harden into bitterness.
You see when you experience something like this, it doesn’t just bruise, it literally cracks the well of your soul; and what you fill that crack with determines your future. That night I chose my relationship with Jesus, and I know that the peace I have today is a direct result of that decision. Not that it was an easy road. When I arrived home that night I stood in my bedroom staring at that shockwave of pain, anger and questions the Lord had paused earlier in the day. He asked if I was ready, and when I said yes that wave landed. That night I broke in ways I didn’t even realize until years later. For years, fear of letting my wife drive without me masked itself as responsibility and vigilance. Holding back from attaching to my children, because I didn’t think I’d make it if something happened to them, went on far longer than I care to admit. The difference however, between the path I chose and the path I avoided, is that damage can be healed; and though I’ve had to walk through a lot of damage, I’ve only faced the challenge of healing, not hopelessness.
What all of this has taught me, is that nothing can take the place of your relationship with Jesus. No sermon, no pastor, no friend, no church. When that call arrived, no words encouraged, no hugs comforted, nothing but the truth pulled me through the dark moments when everything I felt seemed to be the most honest; and all I wanted was to be told my anger was just and the depth of my grief valid. When grief beckons you out to sea, Jesus will tell you the hard truths. He will tell you that every Christmas isn’t ruined, just that one. The truth that while my Dad won't be here to see my sons’ first steps on earth, he will see their first steps in heaven. Those truths, while sometimes difficult in the moment, anchor you to eternity.
If you’ve been around for any period of time, you’ve probably heard someone say “God allows these things to bring us closer to him”; as someone who has walked through it, I can assure you death and evil are not from God. He is just gracious enough to take what is meant for evil, and make it so good, it feels like it was part of the plan all along. The crack in my soul has never closed, and coming to the place I am today didn’t happen overnight. However, filling that space with my relationship with Jesus has planted a piece of heaven deep within. It has produced in me a tenderness for those in pain, that cannot be darkened or jaded, because healing has become a part of me.
If you are in a sea of grief right now, or worse, living with the bitterness it left behind; I want to encourage you that Jesus is near to the broken hearted. His words are not always the most comforting, but they are always honest; and when you are drowning you want the guy who’ll knock you out and drag you to shore, not the guy who tries to make you feel better about your situation. I still shed the ocasional tear over a missed moment, or experience I wish my parents were here to share. However, I know that every day I walk in peace and hopefulness, every first I enjoy with my boys and Christmas I refuse to sacrifice at the alter of sadness, I am stealing glory from grief. So, from truth to truth, standing firmly on a foundation of unshakable peace, rooted in eternity and comforted by the creator, I defiantly say “oh death where is your victory, oh death where is your sting!”
~In Loving Memory of Pat Wilbourn, Alan Wilbourn & Kay Nelson