Here’s what I have learned about God through my grief so far this year:

1.God deeply cares about every wound in you and wants to heal you

I have been wrong to assume God wants obedience void of the heart’s condition. Its as if I imagined God wanting me to robotically do what he says despite my own humanity. I have learned in this journey through grief, that he cares so deeply about our hearts. As the Bible says, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. He knows a broken heart can’t have a full life. So Jehovah Rapha would like to heal us. If only we would trust his methods and his way.

2. God created your humanity and he is not afraid to experience it

I once looked at my humanity itself as the problem. But God was never afraid of my feelings, disappointments and my opposing views of Him. In fact , he knows all of it. However, he wants us to share them with and worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. At times that means, worship and singing. other times it means to lament. Others times it means to argue and wrestle with the Lord. To worship according to Romans 12:1-2 is to offer our bodies as living sacrifices Holy and acceptable to God for this is our spiritual acts of worship. So why do we not offer both our good and bad? Why do we hide our grief, anger, disappointment and shame. As if He doesn’t know. He wants all of us as well as the humanity he created. How can we overcome that which we will not face?

3.You are more flawed than you think and more loved than you think.

When the Bible says no one is righteous. I didn’t truly believe it. Deep downs although I would never verbally admit it, I thought I was righteous and other were apart from Christ. Going through church hurt, really broke down my flawed view of myself, leaders and honestly everyone. No one is righteous and the only one righteous is Christ. And despite all that, we are RICHLY loved. Romans 5:6 says, ” For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. He died before we were perfect so He loved us in our mess. God wants to make us like him. But it is not by trying really hard. It’s by giving us His spirit to help us live righteously; because no one gets to heaven on merit. We get there by accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior. His death covered our sins and in exchange we get to walk in His righteousness. Positionally we are made whole redeemed! Yet on this earth all the messiness of us gets worked out through trial and hardship which is meant to prune us that we may bear more fruit. So yes, we are more flawed than we know- but we are also more loved than we can ever imagine!

4.To Grieve deeply is to love love deeply- these are 2 ends of the same barrel

To feel great pain and loss is a result of having loved greatly. I realize that grief is the cost of love. And that if I can deeply feel my pain and sorrow, it only deepens my ability to experience love and joy to the a greater capacity. We think that grieving is bad, but it’s just a reality when love is lost. If you do not grieve loss, did you really ever love? To runaway from grief holds us back from fully experiencing the joy and love in our lives. We become fearful, so we stay away from fulfilling and rich relationships. That is only fear robbing us. On the contrary, those who have grieved, learn that love and joy are to be cherished. Thus they can fully embrace life more. To be afraid to grief is to be afraid to love; part of loving is taking the risk of your heart breaking or grieving!

5. You may not know all the things you need to grieve until you start to grieve.

So start the process… it may surprise you. Writing grief letters has taught me how many issues I hid under the surface. It also taught me I made maladaptive behaviors my normal. Like not resolving my issues, made me think the unhealed version of me was me- but it wasn’t. I was operating in a less than version of me because of trauma, hurt, etc. It’s wild to look at life and see how much of my unresolved grief was controlling how I dated, chose friends, etc. Sometimes grief becomes a cloak to hide us rather than a process to change us for the better. And its no wonder because its easier to cling to the old than embrace the new and unknown. Processing my grief has taught me that there are horizons I have never seen of myself. But the only way I have discovered them is through the dark night of the soul. In short, the tough things we go through can reveal new heights and levels of growth we never thought possible. If only we allow it. There is power in surrendering and letting go in grief. This losing allows us to embrace a beautiful new you!

I am sure there are many more lessons still in the making but for now, I hope this encouraged you to grieve. To deal with the hurt you may be hiding from. Isn’t time to meet the real you? or the next level you?

signed a a fellow griever