My child, you often think that your purpose fled when your loved one passed away.
You assume new purpose must be grand to mirror what your loved one gave you.
But … don’t my sparrows have a purpose?
They sing with joy.
They protect their young.
They fly freely.
Does anyone write a memorial to their legacy? Yet I see and know each one. I treasure their purpose.
To live is to have value, my child. Grief doesn’t have to extinguish joy and purpose.
Let me do work in your spirit, and you can be like a sparrow, safe with me. Treasured by me.
Sparrows sing with joy. So can you.
What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows. Matt 10:29-31
The mist before you swirls and obscures your path. You can’t push it aside, but you can walk through it.
This mist of grief hides the path which you’re on, but it thins as you take more steps.
I have never left you, as I promised from the start. You never walk alone.
You persevered–even when you couldn’t see your feet below you. Healing comes even when the path is obscured, because it truly is there.
Grief teaches truths you did not know before. You’re finding that you are changed forever by loss, because you risked love.
You loved, so you mourn. Don’t let go of that love, even in your pain. Allow grief to teach you to love more expansively and exuberantly.
You know the pain, and it can be endured. You know the cost of love, and you have survived.
This is a lesson of grief: you can love, knowing you could survive a fall.
In the mist, healing can happen. Transformation occurs.
Embrace each step and learn each lesson.
I am with you always, to the end of the eternity..
Take the steps with me, even when you can’t see your path.
Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand. Isaiah 41:10
Note: this post is a little different from the usual Listening Project posts because it’s from my perspective. But I think God directed these words and maybe they will give you hope in your grief.
For Christians, today is often overlooked–the day after Jesus’ crucifixion and the day before Easter. The in-between day.
But then I thought of the grief that the friends and followers of Jesus felt as he lay in the tomb.
I understand the numbness, the finality, the cold, hard grief that descended on them like an unexpected hailstorm, devastating their hearts and faith.
It’s easy to forget that those people faced searing agony. That in-between day had to be one of crushing loss of a beloved friend and the apparent shattering of the dreams they had about Jesus as the Messiah.
They had been slammed against a jagged wall of loss, and I understand their deep pain.
Their grief directly correlates to our grief.
But here’s the crucial part: their grief ended with the unbelievable joy of resurrection.
Our pain of losing loved ones is not the final word, but only a temporary state. We live in that in-between time now.
It is crushing at times. Searing and empty. Like for those friends of Jesus.
But resurrection is coming for us as well.
As his body was taken away, the women from Galilee followed and saw the tomb where his body was placed. Then they went home and prepared spices and ointments to anoint his body. Luke 23:55-56
The storm has passed, although its lashing winds and roaring thunder buffeted you more than you thought you could bear.
But now…
Yellow flashing light shreds the clouds, and golden lines spread across the sky. An explosion of light.
I am like that light, breaking through barriers and filling the dark places with my glory.
Grip my words and push dark thoughts of sorrow and heaviness into a locked trunk.
We’ve wept together for your losses in the storm, but we now walk together in victory.
Remember my words and my promises. Life pulsates in my kingdom. This world’s storms are not the end of the story.
I am the light that shatters the darkness. I am the glow of joy and life and freedom.
Take control of your thoughts that could lead you astray, and choose to follow my lead. Trust me on this day.
I am with you in the storm. And after.
Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He calmed the storm to a whisper and stilled the waves. What a blessing was that stillness… Let them praise the Lord for his great love and for the wonderful things he has done for them.
My morning’s confidence should’ve been a giveaway. But, no. I confidently assured my fellow travelers, who had to go through airline security with a baby, that I’d wait on the other side of security for them.
After all, I have TSA PreCheck. I didn’t have to shed my shoes or jacket. The TSA people in my line always brought me chocolate mints and an arm flourish as I walked through. (OK, I might have exaggerated that part.)
But that morning, I cleared the metal detector with no problem, only to watch my carry-on bags slide to the other side of a glass wall.
How was I supposed to get them over there?
Some Good Sense…
I did have the good sense not to reach over the barrier or I might be writing this from a cell.
Before long, I realized that the other side of the glass wall was reserved for suspect bags.
Like mine?
They were flagging quite a few, so I stood by patiently–which of course I always do (stand patiently, I mean)–until they got to my bag.
The attendant peeled back the zippered cover and went digging. She snagged my shaker bottle with the plastic bag of powder stuffed inside.
“That’s just protein powder,” I said. She didn’t even look at me. Instead, she scurried to another counter, dipped a small sample out of the bag, and dripped something onto the powder from a bottle that looked like it held eye drops.
“It’s protein powder,” I said. In case they were confused.
Nope. Not confused. My powder tested positive for something–they didn’t know what when I asked–and so my suitcase innards, my electronics, and I all got a pat-down.
Then they re-packed my suitcase, including the protein powder, and sent me on my way.
Repacking It All
I texted my hosts for the week: You may be housing a terrorist.
She texted back: Is it too late to run a background check?
Haha.
My morning’s confidence had melted away in the pat-down, but then I thought about my fellow travelers. Have they made it through security yet?
Right then, their text message arrived. Oh, good. I could still help. Maybe carry the baby. Or a bag.
Then I read the text: We’re at the gate.
I Learned
I once held the belief that airport security lines took forever. Long snake lines measured in eons.
But I’ve learned. Nothing takes as long as being threatened with protein powder prison.
