loss

This may be the hardest post I will ever write, but I feel it may be better to put it on paper.

Early this morning, my dad passed away unexpectedly. My mom had been trying to call all morning, our phones on silence from a wedding the night before. He died young and quick, with no warnings other than the breathing that awoke my mom from her sleep. Unfortunately she was not able to wake him from his.

There is truly no feeling like this, no pain the same. I want to cry, I want to lie down and melt into the floor. I want to wake up, for someone to pinch me and tell me that it was all a dream and everything is going to be okay.

The best I have is to turn to the Lord, and to the family that He has provided me with. There has been a flood of prayers and emails and texts and calls. It's incredible how quickly the word flies. Talking to people is the hardest. Everyone wants to help, to take it away. But I just can't keep telling the story over and over. It's so hard.

This feeling is like nothing I have ever experienced. I zone, I am "ok", I sob and break down, and it cycles interchangeably and is set off for no apparent reason or by no trigger. I want to throw up. To scream. To kick and cry and punch the wall and break everything and yell at God.

And yet, all the screaming in the world would not bring him back. Hurting myself wouldn't help...I know I need to be here for my family. I know we need to pull together, to help each other and lean on each other and just continue to pray and to lean on God for strength and guidance and wisdom and peace.

As I pour through God's word, I realize not only how important, but how BIBLICAL grief is. Ecclesiastes 7:1-4 reads, A good reputation is better than precious perfume; likewise, the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth. It is better to go to a funeral than a feast. For death is the destiny of every person, and the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, because sober reflection is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of merrymaking

I should note a disclaimer. I'm not studying the context of this passage. I'm merely reporting the versus as I see them...and finding the comfort that grief is natural and encouraged and God sees us through it all*

luke 1:78-79 offers comfort, reading Because of our God's tender mercy the dawn will break upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

2 corinthians 1:9, Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow toward us, so also our comfort through Christ overflows to you. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort that you experience in your patient endurance of the same sufferings that we also suffer. And our hope for you is steadfast because we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you will share in our comfort.

When we die and leave these bodies, we will have wonderful new bodies in Heaven, homes that will be ours forevermore, made for us by God himself, and not by human hands."-- 2 Corinthians 5:1

in the desert...

Sheer, pure, exhaustion at its finest. Fatigued. Drained. Burnt out. Dead. Apathetic. Indifferent. Zoned. Blank.

I have a client who lost a father, and her affect is flat. She can be joyful or bored and still appear the same. I wonder if it's a continuation of such potent care and empathy and emotion that she got to the point that it becomes too much energy to show any emotion. To fully feel anything. It eventually comes to a point that it's easier just to float through life and neglect to feel at all.

It makes me want to jump up and down and scream obscenities at Satan. She's only 8. It's not fair. And yet, two decades her senior, I am struggling with the same thing, and with a living father. It's a difficult contradiction of the self to be so exhausted that care disappears but to still care that others are hurt by your not caring. EVERY effort feels like picking up a concrete block. EVERY move wears me down. It's easiest to be fake, but when the opportunity arises to take off my mask and expose how I feel, I only disappoint.

I feel lost in a whirlwind of despair. Despair over lost opportunities, dying relationships, diminishing effort. And yet as I look upon myself, I am standing on the ground in the middle of the cyclone, screaming in an inaudible, desperate, child-like voice. Part of me is dying, and part of me is grasping to find anything to hold on to.

Lord, I cry in desperation. Help me through this pit of the desert. Help me overcome the thirst of the parched soul longing for water. Rescue me from the lost life I am becoming. I pray to You and You alone, O Sovereign God. Find me in my place of nothingness and help me to survive.