In our hurry up world, when everything is fast food, instant service, faster WIFI speeds and everyone and everything is at lightning speed, grief is not. Grief moves along at its own pace and shows up whenever it wants, wherever it wants and however it wants.

I don’t know about you, but I get really tired of grief showing its ugly face when least expected. The other day I was at Wal Mart. They were playing music from the 70’s and I was not really paying attention until suddenly I recognized the song that was playing from when we dated. There, right smack dab in the middle of the underwear department, I started crying. Not just a few boo-hoos but really sobbing.

I was so overcome I could not decide whether to run and leave my basket of items in the middle of the aisle, of try to suck-it-up and ‘get over it’. Yep, that phrase of ‘get over it’ popped into my head too.

Well, I took a deep breath, finished listening to the song, dried my eyes and went about my business. The pain of my loss was just as painful as it was at first but the times it stays does not last as long.

I was confiding in a friend about that and this is what she told me. When we have a loss it is like a box with a ball in it and the ball takes up the entire box. No matter how we move the ball hits the sides and it hurts. As time passes the air is let slowly out of the ball. Being smaller it takes more movement for it to hit the side of the box to cause pain. It is the same pain but it will not be long before the ball moves again and the pain is gone.

Made sense to me. I will never ‘get over it’ but my ball will get smaller and have longer to travel before it causes pain. That image made me feel normal and normal is hard to find when you have experienced a deep loss.

Like the plane above, moving around the storm clouds and fighting the winds, we fly through the storms in our life knowing that the sun is on the other side of the clouds. We try to find our way to relief and a respite from the pain. My relief – God. My respite, reading the Word. God is the God of all comfort.

“Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice! Have mercy also upon me and answer me…Your face Lord, I will seek…Wait on the Lord and be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart! Wait, I say, on the Lord! Psalm 27:7-8, 14

Prayer: Jesus, I know that you know how it feels to hurt from loss. You cried when your friend died. You had sorrow. You looked up to the face of Your Father and cried. Now we look up to You and cry out in our pain. I know that you will never leave us, you will always be our comfort. You are the source of true joy. Jesus, I believe. Thank you.

Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay