The Forest of Grief

I see you, I see your hurt and pain. I can see you trying to be strong, but your eyes are windows to your soul which speak a much different story than your Facebook posts parade to the world. You're tired, you're weary. It's been a rough few days? weeks? months? perhaps even years? My heart aches for you. I see you trying to push through. I see you fighting to pick up the pieces. I see you picking yourself up only to be pushed back down again and again. I see you losing hope, I see the dark cloud that looms over you, the parting of the haze and the torrential downpour that leaves you beat down, cold and weary yet again. Tonight you'll rest your head only to wake and do it all over again and you'll wonder if you can manage yet another day. I get it, people like us can read each others soul, there is no masking the hurt, or pain. There's an empathy that has been built up in the ones left behind, relating to those on the basis of a common ground we wish we never had, yet it is how we will find healing, by out stretching our hands to one another, reaching out to those in the thick of their struggle.

Grief: a cause of such suffering - is seldom talked about even when you are in the midst of it. We are never prepared, nor taught how to grieve and I think that is one aspect that makes it so difficult. It catches us off guard, it feels unnatural, unsafe, unfamiliar and not anything we want to go through but it is something we all must find our way through. It is a powerful emotion that has the ability to render us completely hopeless if we let it. It can cause utter despair and depression, if we give it the power to. But it also has the ability to carry us through to the other side where we will feel life again, we love again, we laugh again. A place where we are stronger and more aware of the precious gifts we have, where we immensely treasure time and people and our lives take a whole new meaning and even a completely different path for us. It has the power to change who we are, and there's no coming out of it the same as you went in.

Like standing at the base of a mountain, your faced with an uphill climb but first you must enter the forest - it is dark and cold and scary, you don't know your way around, your likely to spend a lot of time wandering, you may even get lost but when you finally manage to find your way to the summit you'll bask in the warmth of the sun and view knowing full well that you left something behind in the forest that you can never get back, and you'll learn to be ok with that, because there is no reversing the journey you were just on.

To mourn is to feel or express grief or sorrow - for that which we have loved and lost (my definition)

Loss of a job

Loss of a loved one

Loss of health

Loss of you marriage

Loss of financial provision

Loss of identity

Loss of a friendship

Loss of innocence

Loss of social status

Loss of youth

Loss of mobility

Loss of a pet

Loss of trust

Loss of your home

Loss of the way we thought it should be.......life is so full of losses it would take pages to list

What do we do with all this hurt, loss?

We grieve, we let the flood gates open wide and we mourn that which meant so much to us, Accept that which we cannot change. Allow the pain and hurt to enter and the process to run its course. There's no point in stifling it, you can block it all you want, but grief has a way of finding its way out, if not now, at some point and most likely when you least expect it. Sometimes decades after the loss. So there is no use in prolonging what is naturally supposed to take place, let the healing tears wash over your soul. It is all apart of the recovery process.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" Matthew 5:4

Some of us will experience a breaking of our souls, a painful process when or hearts bleed open and through grief we stitch it back together. In time it will heal, but the scars will always be there, a souvenir of the tragic loss we endured. A reminder of what we walked through, what we lost, and how we came out on the other side. Battle scars of how we made the choice to see it through and not allow the pain and sadness to over take us. We felt the pain, we cried the tears, but we did not allow it to be our end. Grieve, yes, stay there, absolutely not.

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds" Psalm 147:3

And then there will come a point when you step out of the forest and realize you are at the summit, you have wandered in the darkness of the forest at a long slow pace often feeling like 2 strides forward, 1000 strides back - over and over, and now you stand at the top of your mountain with a new map in your hands, a map you created through your grief because the path you were on before is no more, the old tattered map is unrecognizable, in the forest you learned to navigate a new path and as difficult as the ascent was you are now able to look back and see parts of the forest were beautiful, in all its darkness and uncertainty, there is a beauty that has formed within your soul. You can't explain it, it is hard to make sense of, but you'll know it when you are there. And as much as you dreaded the process, you'd never request or wish for it, you'll be able to find good from your journey.

Your heart will be scarred but the scars beat compassion and empathy, a certification process that enables us to use that hurt and pain for redemptive purposes using that un-credited slip of paper to walk alongside our brothers and sisters when the losses of life enter into their world. For if we have journeyed such a path, to hold onto that map for ourselves will not only hinder us from further growth, it holds back hope and healing in those around us. We all walk around with broken parts and tattered maps, dirty shoes from the sludgy paths we try to plow through, wouldn't the world be a bit better of a place if we did it together, if hope and healing could be found in sharing our stories and helping each other get back up? We are all in this life together, why do we make this process so solitary

I see you, I see your hurt and pain, but I also see you on the other side. Your path is painful, the journey often long and exhausting and feels downright defeating. Keep putting one foot ahead of the other, allow yourself to feel the pain of the loss, but continue to put the pieces back together. You will find your way through the dark forest, you will feel the shine of the sun again and when you do you will be transformed. Your losses will always be apart of you, the scars you will carry for the rest of your life. But you will not be defined by them, they make you who you are but you are not grief, you are not your sadness, you are not the deep dark forest, you are a new creation.

Allow the light to enter back into your dark, be brave and bold enough to get back out there, yes you have been broken, bruised and scarred, but nothing has equipped you more to set foot into the next forest, whether you like the trees or not, this life is full of deep dark forests (losses) and the only way to survive is to learn to navigate your way through them, or you can wander around in the forest haphazardly in the dark; scared, mournful, distressed, worried and joyless for the rest of your life.

"Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God-soon I'll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He's my God" Psalm 42:5 MSG