How Long Should You Grieve Hard Things?!

Something happened in me yesterday. A culmination of a bunch a different circumstances came together and each one took my trembling chin, my tear stained cheeks, my blurry eyes, and my heavy eyelids and pointed in the same direction, the direction of hope.

The last five years of life, I feel like I was asked to walk a road littered with more pain, grief, sadness, shock, depression and darkness then ever before. A deep, deep winter of the soul. My pain, I know can easily be eclipsed by the stories of horror that you my dear readers have walked through. So sometimes I feel embarrassed for even bringing up my hurts.  But I've learned that life isn't about comparing our wounds, rather it's entering into each other's wounds and sitting in the mess together. Without comparison plaguing the space.

I'm still a little unsure how to best explain what took place in me yesterday, but in order for all of this to take root, I have to write about it no matter how broken and incomplete it might be. 

Julia got her ears pierced over Christmas. The first pull of the gun on her right ear didn't even make her cry, but immediately her body tensed in my arms as she anticipated the next pull. Therefore, when her left ear was pierced, her body jumped and her tears flowed. The pain could have been measured exactly the same in each ear. The gun did not shoot harder or sting worse, rather her body was waiting for it. 

The last five years, my body has been tensed in anticipation of the next pull. It hasn't been an intentional thing I directed my heart to do, but a natural response to a waterfall of hurt. I didn't even recognize I was doing it until yesterday. The heart can only take so much loss before it begins to self protect. My heart has been self protecting. I've lost a lot in the last five years. Each loss hurt worse than the one before because my body was raw and tense, I could only anticipate that more pain was coming. Even when there were chapters of calm and steady, I just knew around the bend more pain was coming. So I prepared myself the way I thought I should prepare myself, I waited to see the result of what God was going to do in my life. For as long as my soul has known Him, I have unreservedly trusted Him. I have rested in His sovereignty over and over again, knowing that whatever He was doing in and through me was right and good. Nothing over the last five years has changed His faithfulness to me. He has been unchanging, and has revealed Himself and His glory to me in a way that required a road of suffering. Last night a friend shared that sometimes the weight of suffering is actually what "sinks" us to the bottom of the ocean, only to find the pearl and the prize that await us there; Jesus. Ugh, the last five years have had a lot of sinking written into the script of my life. But I wouldn't trade it. Not a single a moment, not a single hurt, not a single tear, not a single betrayal, not a single meltdown, not a single shred of the despair that threatened to suffocate me ....because the way I met Jesus on the bottom of the ocean floor makes what I am about to share with you even more rich to my soul.

Sometimes in the middle of grief we are only left with enough energy to say, "Yes Lord! Here I am!" The pain can numb us so bad that all we have to offer on the altar of worship is the act of resting and trusting in His holiness, in who He says He is. Whether or not we actually feel like it. There I have found my Refuge. But in my resting, in my trusting, a part of me died. A part of me resigned itself. Part of me stopped hoping. In the midst of constant bad news being delivered to the door step of my heart, I just stopped hoping in good gifts from God. Justifying this death in my heart by stretching "God's sovereignty" over it like a band-aid over cancer. "To live is to hurt" was my banner of the last five years of my life.

But something happened yesterday. I was reading a book called, "Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet" (GO BUY IT RIGHT NOW) and the author was speaking about creation. How our sweet Savior spoke into being the entire universe that lies around us, but carved out this niche' for Adam. He left the naming of the animals for Adam. Not because our God lacks creativity and couldn't do it Himself, but because He wanted Adam to be an active part of what He was doing. He desired deep in His majestic being, for Adam to come along side of Him and own his place by the King of the World.

And in that moment something awakened in me that's been so dead. God whispered to my heart, "Sara, come name the animals with Me!" It broke me. It was the dearest thing my heart had heard in five years. I trembled, because you see I don't even remember how to name the good things anymore. Because I'm terrified if I begin to name the good things somehow I'll lose again. Pain can do that, pain can scar us for eternity.

For the first time in a REALLY long time, I don't just want be the result of God what is doing. I am ready to name the animals again. I am ready to take my place along side of the King of the World and actively participate in what He is doing. Not because I have to, not because I am being told to, not because my salvation or God's opinion of me depends on it, but because I WANT to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of living! 

I have clung to Psalm 27:13-14 the last five years, and yesterday I read it so differently.

"I would have despaired unless I had believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of living. Wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord."

I had clung to words like "despair, wait, strong, courage." But yesterday my eyes handcuffed the words goodness and living. Two things that have been oh so dormant in my life. And in a single moment, a raindrop of hope fell across what was a barren desert for far too long. And just like a little girl pulls the ear of her father down to her level, I had the courage to ask the Lord to see His goodness in the land of the LIVING, without being terrified. Oh, I have tasted and I can bear witness to seeing the Lord's goodness in the land of death and pain, He has met me there up close and personal for the last five years, but my heart so desperately needs to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of LIVING! 

And so today, in a way much like a baby begins to walk, I am going to take a step towards naming the animals in my life. If I was being honest, first, I have to open my eyes from this long winter's nap and find the animals.

24 hours later, hope has smeared itself all over my life. And it tastes so good! 

I cannot wait to tell you the names of my animals!

To Him and Him alone,

~Sara