Life is filled with love and loss. Love, we love. Loss we avoid at all costs. But to deny the reality of a disconnection from a significant part of our life is to embrace a disintegrated existence. Integration is a full acceptance of how life actually is and walking in that reality. To be disintegrated is to live amid half-truths, resulting in a fractured soul. Broken arms are much easier to treat than broken souls.
Loss is a huge part of life, even when you live in Disney World. You can accept that, or you can run from it. Many try to numb it, which can lead to disintegration in which thoughts, emotions, and behaviors fragment and addiction takes root.
Grief does not only surround the death of a loved one, but it also has to do with all of life’s losses.
I now believe that grieving well is living well.
Losing my wife suddenly, seventeen months ago, has brought a life-altering change.
From the beginning, I have been determined to grieve well. I have had some success, and I have fallen short. One thing I have said from the start is that grief is weird. It is. So weird in the ways it impacts your thinking, emotions, and the ability to function. Everything is brought into question, like what I imagine an interrogation room would be like, but instead of a bright light, it can feel like an overwhelming darkness.
Emotions become chaotic and unpredictable. Crying in the grocery store was pretty normal for me last year. Feeling trapped can be a thing. People say unhelpful things. Friends will abandon you because they have moved on, while the grieving are apparently stuck.
There is hope! You have to want it. And by that I mean, you have to be willing to chase it.
Grieving well is not like most things, but it helps in every aspect of life.
Grief Share was great for me. Counseling with prayer ministry was integral. Living Waters changed my life. Daily journaling was essential. Grief books, workbooks, church integration, and devotionals all contributed in so many positive ways.
But above these, or better said, along side all of these, was the momentary process to move through loss. Momentary because there were times when it felt like I was surviving a moment-by-moment struggle through my grief. The direction is through, always through. Denial kills, stopping the journey that you are on.
You have to feel your emotions. Let them run, which is the scary part. I am at a place now where I do not care if I am crying in the grocery store; it took a long time, but I’ve arrived.
Then you have to acknowledge what you are feeling and name it. I feel lonely. I feel lost. I feel angry, etc.
As a follower of Jesus, I know that I must lay this named thing down at the foot of the cross, giving it to the crucified Christ and leaving it there. If I pick it back up, and I have plenty of times, it puts you back at the beginning of the process, which is not failure; it just is. Feel it. Own it. Name it. Leave it.
Then one more thing that continually seals the deal for me: Worship. God is bigger than my grief, and he chooses to be right here with me as I go through it. I tell him how marvelous he is and how thankful I am to be his very own child. I am so grateful for the life I had with Connie, and I am looking forward to what he has in store for me next.
This is integration, and integration is wholeness.
Feel it. Own it. Name it. Leave it. Worship.
