11-15-20 Just Keep Swimming
Quote: “Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” – Vicki Harrison
I don’t know who Vicki is but the timing of me seeing this quote was spot on.
Whenever I think of grief, I think of the worst thing possible – a human life coming to an end. That has got to be the worst and hardest thing to deal with, no matter who it is or the circumstances surrounding the death. I grieved this week with other college professors at the loss of an amazing educator. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the statistic of how many have lost their life worldwide because of this virus. I shed some tears when I saw the loss of life and destruction from the recent hurricanes in poor villages in Central America. I lost my sister-in-law to cancer some years back and I am still grieving that loss.
But you know what else we are all grieving? I believe we are grieving our sense of normalcy.
When we were all sitting around the Thanksgiving table or Christmas tree last year, we had high hopes for 2020. We had no idea what we were in for or how resilient we’d all have to become. This pandemic has changed everything. Everyone has been affected in some way, shape, or form.
God gave me some words this week about grieving. I heard him loudly say, “Danielle, it’s okay to grieve.” And so I did.
I cried over my children’s loss of education. I cried over not being able to travel to help distressed countries. I cried that in a matter of just 3 short weeks, 2 out of the 5 of us in our little family had to be quarantined because they were exposed to someone who had tested positive for the virus. I cried thinking about my 99-year-old great-grandma who is sitting alone in her assisted living home, not able to get hugs from all of us. I cried that they have identified the medical field and the education field as 2 of the career fields where people are silently struggling the most, both fields of which my sister, brother-in-law, husband, and I are in. I cried knowing that the holidays won’t be the same this year.
I think we need to cry and allow our children to see us cry as well. It’s not healthy to keep all that grief inside. If we are always strong for them, they will think they need to be that way, too. They won’t experience the physical and mental benefit of letting some good tears come out. Yes shielding them from a lot of what is going on is still the best strategy, but letting them in on how we are doing is also important.
When I think about grief, I think about the verse in the book of Revelation. This is the last book of the Bible and it is describing what Heaven will be like. It says in Revelation 21:4, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” What a verse of comfort! This and other verses like this is why Christians are able to live through the tears – we know that Heaven is coming. This earth is our “hell” – this is as bad as it is going to get for us. We charge through the pain because we know we’ve got good things coming!
But let’s not forget to grieve. Call someone. Send that message to a friend. Let them grieve with you. And if you can’t get a hold of anyone, lean on the Ultimate Comforter. He will never leave your side. He always has a listening ear to hear your pain.
If grief is like an ocean, we never know when it’s going to ramp up or be still. It will change moment by moment, day by day. We need to battle the waves with our head above the water and then rest in Him when the storm passes. We need to talk it out, cry it out, and pray it out.
And to quote Dory from “Finding Nemo”… just keep swimming!
