By Matthew Christian

What do you do when the world goes dark?
When all the lights blink out, every glimmer and spark
And you’re stranded with a turbulent heart
Hopelessly staring at a thousand question marks? 

What do you do when words can no longer articulate 
The chaos, the change, the sinking sands sucking the soul away?
What do you do when your heart is restless,
Ever roving and raging everywhere, 
Lost?

What do you do when the pasted smile on your face
Saying “Everything is perfectly fine”
Is painfully fake; a false facade hiding fear and shame
Afraid that others won’t accept your frailty and vulnerability?

What do you do when no one ever really understands
The magnitude of misery that you face day in and day out?
How despair sinks its teeth into your flesh and bone
Transforming your heart into unfeeling stone
No!

I didn’t ask for this 
I didn’t sign up for pain and trauma
I didn’t sign up to see a whole family broken
I didn’t sign up for innocence being scarred
I didn’t sign up to be abandoned and alone
I didn’t sign up for being made helpless
I didn’t sign up to grieve the loss of life
I didn’t sign up. . . for a lot of things
None of us did
Yet here we are
From the first anniversary to the ninth
From diagnosis to treatment
From virus to vaccine
From problem to solution
From normal to upside down
From thriving to barely surviving

We all grieve loss
We all carry scars
We all wrestle with pain
We are all broken in the end

But what if I told you broken was beautiful?
What if I told you shattered pieces can still become a masterpiece of art?
What if I told you the silence was not the absence of God, but His attentive listening?
What if I told you that the emptiness you feel is a grace from God?
What if I told you that your tears are watering a garden of new life?
What if I told you that hope like the stars shines brighter the darker it gets?

The truth of the gospel is the most beautiful to the broken
Each shattered fragment of a dream is for a reason
Redeemable in the hands of the Master Artist 
The silence
An invitation to our souls to lament to a listening and loving Father
Our emptiness
A reminder that this is not our home and to find our satisfaction in God alone
Each tear
Caught in God’s bottle, declare the truth that today is a gift from God filled with new mercies
And hope
Hope like starlight shines bright in our darkest night 

So what do we do when the world goes dark
And we can’t express the depths of our heart?
What do we do when we feel stuck
With the gravity of life weighing down on us? 

I don’t have all the answers
Neither do you
But the One who formed us in our mother’s womb
Is faithful to complete the good work He has begun
Equipping us with all we need for life and godliness
Forgiving our debts and transforming our hearts
And redeeming our life from the deepest pit
He knows. 
He was always by your side.
He is here now.
He will never leave.
Ever.
And He 
Loves
You.

by Terry Gee

"In a culture that doesn't like to acknowledge loss or talk about the impact, it's difficult to grieve."[1] – H. Norman Wright

"Should I be over this by now?"

"Am I supposed to focus on the bright side of things?"

"What do I do with my sadness?"

When the harsh reality of loss comes upon us we are faced with the painful visitation of grief. It comes unwelcome and we are thrust into it without time to prepare. In the fallenness of our world, it is a given that we will encounter grief, but we are faced with the choice of how we will respond. 

Engaging with Grief

Some of us may not have been taught how to grieve. And even if we have, the pervading sense towards it may be that is it something to be resisted or at least experienced to the least degree possible.

But is resisting this unwelcome visitor truly the best for us? Or do we do ourselves harm as we suppress it and disengage with our grief?

H. Norman Wright, a Christian trauma and grief therapist writes:  

"Whenever there is a loss, there will be grief. But some do not grieve or mourn. Some make a choice not to express all the feelings inside so their grief is accumulated. Saving it won't lessen its pain. It will only intensify it. Silence covers wounds before the cleansing has occurred. The result will be an emotional infection."[2]

Engaging with our grief then becomes a matter of health for our hearts. In the midst of a very painful and sorrowful time, with many losing loved ones, will we choose to walk the path of grief? Or will we keep it at an arm’s length and focus only on the positives? If so, how bad will it have to get before we will feel released to grieve?  

On the Path of Grief

For those who are already on this path of grief, or for those who know someone who has lost someone, here are some suggestions that may be helpful as you walk through it. 

Continue reading here

[1] H. Norman Wright, Experiencing Grief (Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Publishing Group, 2004), 1.

[2] Wright, 14.