I missed getting to write my posts here for several months because I was caring for an 88-year-old with memory issues and declining health. As her struggles grew more severe, and my time and energy was consumed with her care, I chose to let more and more of my personal ambitions be set aside temporarily, so I could devote myself to help her make the most of what time we might have left. God took her home to Heaven a little over a month ago. Now I am free to once again pursue the passions of my heart and one of those is sharing with the Hope for Widows community in my blogs.
The process of grief is both fluid and fickle, so deep and yet distant, and so real and at the same time imagined, it becomes completely unique and distinct in every individual. Aspects of our experience resonate with one person’s description, and sound like dissonance with another’s. It runs the spectrum of emotions. It feels one way today and like something very different at other times.
As I process yet another deeply personal loss in my journey, I am staggered how grief is able to derail my life yet again. Since my husband went home to Heaven nearly six years ago now, I have been diligently working to find balance and stability, especially with the emotions and physical impacts grief brought into my life. I’m purposefully allowing myself to explore and experience the imprint and weight of the effect of the loss of his physical presence brought in my life. I thought I was making significant progress and doing well at least on that front.
This relationship with my friend I was caring for was not supposed to be something I would need to worry about. When I cared for my husband for more than five years, of course that would take a toll on me because he was the love of my life and my intimate partner I was in covenant with God with. When I cared for my best friend who was battling brain cancer, I knew if God took her to Heaven, I would have another hole in my life from a relationship that grew very important over nearly fifteen years sharing life in deeply personal struggles.
I was just a stranger when I took a job as a companion for my friend.
She was only in my life for about eighteen months. God grew our relationship and I love her dearly. Now that she moved to Heaven, my life entered yet another season of time warp and the crazy chaos of grief wreaking havoc. My sleep is erratic. I am struggling to find a new general schedule of daily activity. I feel restless and without a steady focus. Making decisions is like pulling teeth. I can’t seem to keep track of time or what day it is. Ugh!!!
My hurting heart turned back the pages of the journals and writings, heart notes and blogs, and some of the gathered expressions that ministered to me through the last years to find some solace and wisdom to hang on to as I contend with another layer of grief. This conversation with God encouraged me. It is written by John Roedel, a poet and author of several books.
Hey God. Hey John.
Me: Hey God.
God: Hey John.
Me: Grief keeps sneaking up on me.
God: That’s because grief is like a ninja.
Me: When will it leave me alone?
God: Hopefully never.
Me: Um. What?!
God: To grieve means that you have loved. Grieving is one of the truest human experiences that you will ever participate in. It often arrives without warning – like a late day summer storm – obscuring the sun and drenching you in a downpour. It’s a gift, isn’t it?
Me: Uh, no.
God: Grab a pen and write the following four things down:
1) Grief can come and go as it pleases. You gave it a key to your house at the exact moment you gave your heart to somebody else.
2) Bereavement is the debt you must pay for having loved. There is no getting over the loss of a beloved who is now resting in the arms of endless love. Grief has no expiration date. Despite the passing of time, the phantom pain of mourning is always one memory away from returning.
3) Of all the emotions you face, grief is the by-far stickiest. It gets all over everything. Like peanut butter, grief sticks to the roof of your soul.
4) Grief is like an
afternoon thunderstorm
in late July.
It’s the storm
that’s always waiting
on the edges
of your most sunny
days to roll
across the horizon
and right over you.
The ghosts of your loved
ones who have died
are the clouds.
The webbed lightning
Illuminating the
dark canvas sky is
their reminder to you
that life is just a
a brilliant temporary flash
of time.
It’s a reminder
to live now.
to be bold.
to be electric.
The pounding rain isn’t your tears.
It’s the hope of eternal life that falls
on you.
It’s that downpour of hope that will
help you grow deep roots in love and faith.
The gale winds
of these storms are
the messages from
those you have
lost to death that
are whispering
to you through the pines
the following psalm:
“It’s okay, my love. Eternity is holding me. Death isn’t an end. Death is a threshold. I’m still here. I never left. Love doesn’t die. Love doesn’t die. I remain. There is no afterlife. There is only life. I’m here with you. Love doesn’t die.”
Me: Okay…great…now I’m crying.
God: I’m proud of your tears of grief.
Me: You are?
God: Yes- because it’s proof that you have loved.
Me: Well, I’ve got all sorts of proof pouring down my face right now…
God: It’s all such an adventure!!
~ John Roedel
I did give my heart to my friend. When I take on a responsibility, I want to give it my best and not hold back. I didn’t guard my heart even when I know it can lead to heart ache. So many times, as I cared for her during these last months, I was reminded of the agonies of watching someone you love suffer the indignities and relentless deterioration of body and soul as disease ravages a once healthy body. It mirrored over and over scenes I witnessed in my care for my husband and best friend. These memories tore open wounds of pain where I felt so helpless and heartbroken because there was no way to stop or control it.
So, what did I learn from my past losses I can use now to navigate yet another one?
God is absolutely good!
God is faithful even when I am not.
God loves me.
God has a plan and purpose He created me to fulfill.
I can’t do this alone. I can’t stop the onslaught of feelings and emotions I feel and will likely continue to feel as I process this grief. I am not strong enough to get through this alone. “I” need to step aside and trust my loving Heavenly Father to walk me through this and into the next assignment He has for me.
When my heart is anchored in my loving Father, and I surrender to Him the things I can’t do and the things I have no idea how to do, He will deal with the things I was never designed to face and the things that are too big for me.
Bill Johnson wrote a very compelling book titled, Removing the Sting of Death, in response to the loss of his beautiful wife. He wrote about how vital it is we run to God and not from Him. I quote, from page 24,
Turning from Him (God) invites chaos to rule the day. Life is hard enough without inviting such disasterous influences into our “mental and emotional living rooms.”
I determined to guard my heart from the temptation to redefine God by my experience. It doesn’t matter whether what I’ve just gone through is good or bad, desireable or undesireable. He is revealed in Scripture as good. Period. And He is either who He says He is in the Bible, or He is not, and we are all doomed. Thankfully, He really is perfect goodness. He’s actually better than I think or can imagine. It is upon me to change the way I think, so that with all my heart and mind, I get to explore this endless realm of His goodness through faith. For faith explores what revelation reveals. And there’s no better time to explore this reality than when we’re in pain.
God is telling me to rest yet again. I poured all I had in me to care for my friend and it depleted me in every possible way. As I rest, I get to share my heart again here. I get to lean in to my dear Heavenly Father to ask Him to reveal what He has in store for me now. It is my deepest desire to fulfill every plan and purpose He has for me.
I guess what I can conclude with is life is hard. Love is messy. Grief is a ninja that steps in and out without warning to try to disrupt and unbalance the rhythm of life. God, who is absolutely good… who is love… stands ready, willing and able to anchor our heart and soul in Him so the storms have no power. We triumph over grief when we keep our minds and hearts stayed on Him.
Perfect, absolute peace surrounds those whose imaginations are consumed with You; they confidently trust in You. Yes, trust in the Lord YAHWEH forever and ever! For Yah, the Lord God, is your Rock of Ages!
Isaiah 26: 3-4 TPT
I choose with deliberation and an open heart to receive God’s perfect peace in my life. I pray you will do the same. Repeat this with me over your life today.
God will guide and direct my steps each day. He will reveal the plans and purpose He created me to be and do. I choose with my will to follow and pursue those plans and purpose and commit to fulfill them to the best of my ability with Your help. Thank You Father for all You do and have done for me. Thank You for all You set before me.
So may the words of my mouth, my meditation-thoughts, and every movement of my heart be always pure and pleasing, acceptable before Your eyes, YAHWEH, my only Redeemer, my Protector.
Psalm 19: 14 TPT
God bless you and keep you. Have a blessed and beautiful day.
About Teri Miner
Teri’s dance with grief actually began over five years before she watched her beloved husband of almost 37 years take his last breath and enter Heaven’s door on October 6, 2019. A terminal degenerative neurological disease steadily and increasingly attacked nearly every major system of his body and transformed him from a vibrant, brilliant, strong and caring man to a bedfast invalid at the end. She was devoted to caring for him and doing her best to make the most of every minute they had left, to love him and pray for a miracle.
She thought she knew what her future held, but she had no idea. Losing him was the first time she experienced a close and personal loss. He was the love of her life. The onslaught of the pandemic with its reign of fear-mongering, forced isolation and separation entering the scene and disrupting or destroying whatever sense of “normal” that remained, just added insult to injury.
Her faith in God is the sustaining force keeping her fighting spirit to find and share hope in a bright future. Her heart’s desire is to walk beside her fellow widows toward a path of promise and healing. She wants to offer encouragement and hope so others can find the strength to take that next breath or next step. She recently started her own blog, https://widowwhispers.blogspot.com/, to share with other widows not only the struggles and hardships of widowhood, but the triumphs. Her hope is found in leaning on the Lord Jesus to enjoy a God inspired future anchored in expectation He will bring us to a fulfilling and meaningful life.