Some of you might have noticed that I haven’t published anything for a couple of months. I’ve sat down to write a few times but could think of nothing to say. I think I am grieving. It’s an unfamiliar emotion. I don’t know how to analyze it.
In our culture, we learn very quickly to not grieve, especially if you are male. Grieving itself is viewed as a weakness. I think this is changing. But I’m not sure.
I know that in my own upbringing, weeping was a sign of weakness. Big boys don’t cry.
So I’m trying on this new feeling for me. Grief. Sometimes loss is just a bit overwhelming. Sometimes I wish I could just experience what they call the “ugly cry” but I don’t think I’m able to. Too unseemly. I have too much of my father in me I guess. But I still grieve.
I am grieving for lost youth. I wasn’t ready for middle age. I wasn’t ready for old people problems. I wasn’t ready for cancer. I haven’t finished being young yet. I wish that I hadn’t squandered my youth with childishness. But now that is gone.
My fingers cramp now when I type. My knees hurt when I walk. The arthritis gets my joints when it rains. I haven’t learned the third movement of the Waldstein sonata yet. There was always a part of me that knew it would always be a little beyond my reach, but now I say goodbye to the dream. It’s a strange feeling. Some days I don’t know who I am.
I am grieving things that I cannot speak of, for they are not my stories to tell. I am grieving the missed opportunities, the lambs that have wandered, the words unspoken, the good deeds left undone.
It’s hard to explain. I don’t know if this is what grief feels like. I know what being sad is, but it isn’t really exactly like that.
It a sigh, it’s a reset of the brain. The remembrance of things past.
I think it is like this: There have been moments in life when a grand buffet table was within your grasp. You tasted it for a moment, but it was taken away before you were finished with it.
Maybe this is how the grass feels. Just when it starts to bloom, the mower cuts it down. Always growing, always becoming, always cut short.
But then I remember that God remembers that we are grass.
13 As a father pities his children, So the LORD pities those who fear Him.
14 For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
16 For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, And its place remembers it no more.
17 But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting (Psa 103:13-17 NKJ)
I am fading.
It wasn’t meant to be like this. I was made to live forever. But now, I fade and die.
To grieve that loss is to be human, I think. But to be a child of God is to try to remember that God knows that.
I am tired of saying goodbye. I am tired of saying goodbye to youth, goodbye to dreams, goodbye to friends, goodbye to family.
I’m tired of it. But God remembers that we are dust. And I try to remember that I will never, ever have to say goodbye to God’s mercy.
God’s mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. You don’t have to say goodbye to the one who doesn’t change.
“O thou who changest not, abide with me.”
Some days I forget to remember that God’s mercy is from everlasting. But God doesn’t ever forget.
Some days, I am in the valley of the shadow of death, and I forget to remember that God is with me. But he doesn’t forget.
He doesn’t leave me behind and forget that he has a child. He doesn’t forget his little lamb.
I think that is astounding.
My Only Comfort 