July 22, 2020

There is a shift happening right now as the world readjusts and does some resetting, due to its current and ongoing circumstances.

It is hard and beautiful.

 

There is also a deep groaning taking place. 

A groaning that is easy to dismiss, because trying to hold its gaze without looking away is incomparably painful.

The groaning of what shouldn’t be, but yet what is.

 

Today.  The groaning is extra loud today, as I hear about the stories of two college friends who both lost their mothers yesterday. 

It shouldn’t be that way.  But it is.  My hurt for them both is fresh and alive.

 

“Grief” isn’t a word to throw around lightly.  It’s an anguish of the soul.  It lives and breathes beneath the surface of what we see on the outside.

Grief is deep and multifaceted.  It shows up in unexpected ways.  It is ongoing and can be triggered by the smallest of actions.  Grief can only accurately be experienced, as opposed to just explained.

 

And there is great grief in loss.  In death.  In brokenness.

- When you know your mom won’t get to watch your kids grow up.

- When you sift through the fallouts of the destruction of addiction.

- When you lose dreams of the future you had joyously pictured.

- When betrayal is so real that your chest physically burns like fire.

- When you, your words, or your character is tarnished or questioned or rejected or abandoned.

- When injustice prevails.  When hopelessness becomes a comfortable companion.

- When you lose a husband. A wife. A mother. A father. A child.

 

These are some of the things happening in the present, causing a deep groaning across Earth and inside many hearts.   

The shift is now.  The reset is now.  The groaning is also now.  

 

And I hope that we will sit with it.  Sit in the uncomfortable anguish.  Try to hold its gaze.  

Do it for yourself, for your friend, for your neighbor, for the stranger behind you in line having the worst day of their life.

Don’t dismiss the groaning; don’t shove it under a rug; don’t even wish it away. 

It’s real and it needs us to lean into it, even just a little.

 

[Selah]

 

And --

Thank goodness, there is so much more.

The story gets to end on redemption’s side.  Every.  Single.  Time. 

And sitting uncomfortably with the groaning of the world –or even just that of your friend— stirs up an inner craving for that promised redemption even more.  

It’s an enthralling hunger.    

 

There is release to be found on the other side of weight.  There is joy to be had after there are no tears left to cry.  There is peace available when everything is beyond overwhelming.  There is reunion ahead with those stolen by physical death.

The shadows are real.  But they are often more misunderstood, than they are dangerous.  And still, they don’t get to swallow us. 

 

Today, as with other days, I sit in the groaning while simultaneously clinging to the Light. 

It is hard and beautiful. 

Written/first made public on 7/22/20