it's ok that you're not ok

I recently started reading It's Ok You're Not Ok and have been bookmarking various parts. This morning I've really been contemplating something she says about grief not being a tool to help you become a better person resulting in knowing what's "truly important in life," as if grief is the only way towards interpersonal growth.  She makes the argument that:

"if intense loss is the only way to make a person more compassionate, only self-absorbed, disconnected, shallow people would experience grief... You didn't need this experience in order to grow. You didn't need the lessons that supposedly only grief can teach. Learning happens in a million different ways. Grief and loss are one path to depth and connection, but they are not the only path... On the contrary: life is call-and-response. Things happen, and we absorb and adapt... You didn't need this... Life-changing events do not just slip quietly away, nor are they atonements for past wrongs. they change us. They are a part of our foundation as we live forward. What you built atop this loss might be growth. It might be a gesture towards beauty, more love, more wholeness. But that is due to your choices, your own alignment with who you are and who you want to be."

Her ultimate point is that grief is not a problem to be solved. "Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried."

"This is really as bad as you think. This sucks and you don't need solutions. There is nothing wrong with grief. It's a natural extension of love. It's a healthy and sane response to loss. That grief feels bad doesn't make it bad; that you feel crazy doesn't mean you are crazy.  Grief is part of love. Love for life, love for self, love for others. What you are living, painful as it is, is love. And love is really hard. Excruciating at times... Because the truth is, in one way or another, loving each other means losing each other. Being alive in such a fleeting, tenuous world is hard. Our hearts get broken in ways that can't be fixed. There is pain that becomes an immovable part of our lives. We need to know how to endure that, how to care for ourselves inside that, how to care for one another. We need to know how to live here, where life as we know it can change, forever, at any time."

I think there's part of me that believes(d) that God orchestrated this loss as some answer to prayer I've made desiring to be more dependent upon him or as some tool to help me look more like Jesus through suffering.  In that sense this can feel like a punishment and if I really stop to identify the truth I don't actually think this is the way God works.  Yet, when I just coast through my grief and questioning of God without considering his word, I can easily start to believe things that do not align with the bible.  I don't think this is accidental; I think it is the reality of Satan's presence in this world and his desire to create distance and distrust of God. 

I had been reading through the book of Job right after Jerrod died and haven't read any further in the past couple weeks, but I'm reminded of his story this morning.  Job's friends try to suggest that his circumstances are a result of his sin.  However, at the beginning of the book we get a glimpse into a conversation between God and Satan that let's us know that the awful loss and pain Job undergoes is about proving Job is righteous and faithful, not a result of his sin. I have to admit it still really pisses me off that God allowed Satan to torment Job to prove a point; it's a real WTF move. It's one of those things I will never fully understand about the way God works, but just as God is not dismayed by Job's questioning and anger, I know he isn't about mine either. I trust my relationship with God will only grow stronger because of my questioning, because of my honesty. And as best I can, I will trust his wisdom and sovereignty.

Below is a really good summation of the book of Job.

Open up and let the light in

We’re breaking all the rules this morning: sleeping in bed with mom and on our stomach. I don’t even care. This isn’t a post about co-sleeping. I know people do it and I don’t actually think it’s wrong. I’m just a rule follower and I never wanted kids in my bed. But we are surviving until we’re thriving (AND WE WILL THRIVE) so the occasional co-sleeping it is.

Staring at this face this morning, I just started weeping because life is beautiful and love brings so much joy even when it’s hard. Right now, in these moments, my heart aches that my brother didn’t feel it or at least not enough of it. He would have made a great father. Maybe he never would have had kids, but now he will never have a moment like this. And even if he never had kids, he will never hold mine again or for the first time. This baby girl won’t know the loving arms of her uncle. It’s a loss she won’t even know she has (besides factually), but I know and I grieve for her, too.

My friend Kristen sent me this post this morning. I don’t know Rachel, but her account is public, so I’m hoping she won’t mind that I’m sharing this here. Her words are beautiful and they speak to my heart. During or after I write each of these posts, I feel the light creeping in and there is peace. My heart is not wrecked all day long, and I know that’s in part due to allowing myself to feel the pain when needed and letting the Lord fill those dark spaces with his light and love.

What has started as a huge gaping hole will shrink as I grieve and heal over time. Sometimes that’s hard to reconcile because it feels like moving on and letting go of my brother, and I desperately don’t want to lose any more of him. So I have to remind myself that it’s not my pain or sorrow that keeps his memory alive, but simply the love that I carry for him in my heart and nothing can take that away.

just the beginning of the wrestling

It took all of an hour to feel utterly overwhelmed this morning and worrying about how we are going to survive once Bret goes back to work. Avery was being fussy and unhappy even being held and Jackson decided to burst into his own waterworks for some reason.  It's exhausting even when I'm not alone and I hit a state of mental panic imagining trying to deal with this on my own.  So Bret grabbed the kids for a double stroller ride to calm everyone down and to give me some peace and quiet.  I reheated my coffee and grabbed the new Truth Unchanging devotional that a friend sent me and started to read.

As with most times of stress these days, one situation turns into anguish over my brother. I'm simply reading the intro about God being with me as I read and desiring to speak to me and immediately my heart cries out why couldn't you have been with my brother?!  Why couldn't you have saved him; spoken truth to him instead of whatever awful lies he believed and agreed with to the point of ending his own life?! My head does not always go to this place.  I can rationalize my way out of being upset with God, but I know for the sake of my healing and for the sake of my relationship with Him, I have to be honest when those ugly thoughts surface. Ultimately I feel let down by God. I know our pain is His pain, but I question how he has let this (suicide) happen to my (immediate) family twice; 3 times including my cousin. I'll never understand his ways and why he prevents some suffering and allows others.

Then my mind launches into an entirely different train of thought... people say to treat mental illness the same as a physical disease.  I generally agree with this statement, as it speaks to the importance of caring for our mental health and combating the stigma around seeking treatment, but a death as a result of mental illness (i.e. suicide) is not the same as someone dying from an illness, such as cancer. In neither circumstance are we hoping for death to be the way someone achieves peace, but I would challenge that it is more devastating - or maybe just devastating in a different way - when someone chooses to end their own life as opposed to having their life ended by an illness.  With a physical illness there feels like so much more that is not within a person's control to bring about health than with someone whose battle is mental. Even as I type this, I'm challenged that maybe that's not really even true.

I've experienced anxiety and depression, but never to the point of feeling suicidal.  There are certainly genetic factors that impact my predisposition to anxiety and depression, but I'm also keenly aware of how my lifestyle and daily choices impact my mood and well being. I also know that it's a lot of work to address those issues and they're not so severe that I struggle to get out of bed in the morning nor have thoughts of wanting to end it all.  It's a battle to try to allow God control and to bring joy into my life when I'm feeling low; how much harder would it be for me to lean into his good news if I were feeling utterly hopeless?  I feel like I'm rambling, but mainly jumped on here to acknowledge that while I ultimately believe God is good and that he can somehow bring redemption, there's still wrestling to be done as I grieve.  I don't think I'll ever have all the answers, but I'm praying that as I wrestle and cry out to God when my head and heart are in chaotic grief, that one day I will predominantly feel peace.