So, I started this blog mainly because I was hearing from others that grieving was a good thing because it allowed you to let out all your pain and sorrow so you could move on with your life. Some even said if you do that, you should get through it in about 1-2 years and then you're good....WHAT? That didn't resonate very well with me because it sounded like how you may feel after emptying out your stomach of all the alcohol you binged on the previous night. I was searching for an understanding of grief and how it may play a role in my journey from sadness to joyfulness. I wondered if grief could really be good when all I could see from my eyes was tears and from my heart was pain. When I imagined this blog, I thought by sharing my feelings of grief with others, it may compel someone in a similar situation to participate in an exchange of thoughts and feelings resulting in a shared bond that would help us both to move together toward finding ways to cope and ultimately healing and moving forward into our new normal.
As I mentioned in my previous blog posting before this one, I joined a 13 week grief therapy program that ended in May. The program was virtual and we met every Saturday morning on Zoom for 2 hours. I did find it helpful to be in the meetings and talk with the other participants about our progress, concerns and setbacks. However, I missed a lot of the sessions for various reasons, so my plan is to go through the program one more time when it restarts in August. Ironically though, it was the very last meeting in May that made the greatest impression upon me. The one question that had haunted me from the time right after Mike passed was "is grief good? how is grieving such a blessing?" Well it was at that meeting, where my eyes were opened to the thought that grief is good, because it is a blessing to grieve. That sounds crazy right? like I just twisted the first part of the sentence around to justify the second part! Well, let me explain what I felt and why I warmed up some to that idea.
Each week we were shown a video that supported the lesson in our workbook. We would observe various testimonials of folks who were grieving and trying to find their way back to some type of normalcy. The video for the final session was titled "What Do I Live For Now?"
Since I was struggling (still am) to build my new normal I was captivated by what I heard and observed. There were many different testimonies where I heard things like - Be more outward in my service - Invest my life into someone else in need - Focus more on what God wants me to do to bless others - Don't monitor my progress daily - Peace and pain can co-exist. This was all good counsel, but one of the main points that I grabbed on to was to remember to trust that God is in control and is working to bring about what is good and best for us. I grabbed on to God's message in Jeremiah 17:5-8 that Blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence. I thought about how in my grief, I was talking more to God about my feelings and getting closer to him. I asked Him to help me focus my attention more on helping others and blessing them through my outward service. He is doing just that for me and I am feeling the blessings from others coming back to me. When I took the focus off myself and how I felt so consumed with grief I started to appreciate all the blessings I had despite the sorrows. I can see that God is doing good things in my life now, not waiting until I stop hurting and being sad. He's doing it right now!!! So for me, maybe grief is good because it's helping me rely on God and get even closer to him. He's answering my prayers with blessings upon blessings. Do you have any thoughts about grief being good or grief being a blessing? I'd love to know what you think and here your testimony about it. Thanks for reading this...
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