Good Grief

You know that phrase, "Good Grief!"? I don't think people really say it too much anymore. Well, people like my dad do. He says all kinds of funny old timer phrases like that. Like, "Judas Priest!" My friends used to think that was so funny in high school. I think also because his name is Bob. It's just fitting someone named Bob would say phrases like that. Anyway, I feel the need to explain it's meaning just in case no one actually does say it anymore because it really isn't obvious. It's one of those oxymoronic euphemisms. Grief does not in any way seem or feel good. Trust me. You say this silly old phrase when you're really annoyed. You can't believe something happened the way it did or someone said something they said. It's like a really annoyed, "Are you kidding me!" You're probably yelling when you say it. I think the time my dad said "Judas Priest" was when I got caught breaking into my neighborhood pool at like midnight one night. (peer pressure ok?) So it's similar to that.

I think about grief fairly often. I think about it fairly often because it is somewhat the backdrop of my life. It colors my days. And truthfully, I've found the reason for my grief and my process with it to be very much "good grief" the way my dad always said it. I literally have felt like yelling, "are you kidding me!" a million times. It has annoyed me to no end to not have "why's" answered or not see what I was hoping to see the way I was hoping to see it in grief. But I just didn't know what grief was. I didn't know what to make of it. I remember writing, when grief first introduced itself to me, that I was not well acquainted with it. I didn't understand it. I'd say I'm well acquainted with its presence now, more familiar with it. Sometimes because it is so familiar it seeps into the fabric of life and it isn't glaringly obvious. Maybe it's like getting used to having a dull headache. You don't even realize you have the headache anymore, unless it hurts more than usual or it completely disappears and you remember what life without pain feels like. Sometimes being familiar with grief is like that dull headache. I can still laugh and smile and enjoy life even with the dull headache because I can kind of ignore it and even sometimes not quite notice it. But in other ways I'm still surprised by grief. Like how quickly it shows up with intensity for me in ways it never would have even glimpsed itself before. A commercial, a song, a thought, a memory, someone else's story. And then when it does show up with such commanding presence I'm surprised by how it colors everything. My mood. My thoughts. My actions. My perspective. My heart. My hope. And it doesn't always feel the same either. Here is one of the most surprising things about grief for me... it isn't an emotion.

Grief is not what I thought it would be. I've studied it-both before I knew it and after. Before I knew it the way I do now, I "studied" it in grad school. As a counselor you have to know aaaaall about grief. I could have told you the process of grief and what to look for in that process. The mechanics of grief I understood. And when I thought of the mechanics I thought of it as a process of emotion. On this side of knowing, I'm certain that the grief itself isn't so much an emotion as it is a presence. It's like a person standing next to you. I can literally see it walking towards me. You know when you're at the beach and it's perfectly sunny but in the distance you can see this dark wall of clouds headed towards you? That's what it is like. Just like that. I'll be playing at the park with Pearce, or watching him run around the house, or hear him laugh, or see a set of twins, or hear a story of a friend who is suffering in loss like mine and I can literally see grief stepping onto the scene. And depending on the form it will take or the energy I think I have I will either brace myself or let it level me. I don't always know what that wall of clouds will do. Because, you know, sometimes at the beach it looks big and scary and intimidating but it blows right over and it's sunny again. Or it thunders like it thinks it's so awesome but then it just sprinkles a little and moves on. OR it parks over you and dumps every last drop of water that ever existed. So sometimes it comes and it feels like pain. I'll remember the day the boys were born and my heart physically hurts in my chest. Sometimes it comes and it feels like longing. Longing for the way I envisioned my life. Sometimes it comes and it feels like anger. I'm angry that God won't let me see the glory of his sovereignty more obviously.

But sometimes, every now and then, it feels like a heavy encouragement. This suffering and the subsequent grief is not what we were intended for. If it was I would feel completely at home in it. But I don't. We weren't meant to be in a broken world and be broken people and feel such broken things. And that dark wall of clouds is a large and loud and obvious reminder that this isn't what we were made for. And the encouragement for me is that there is an eternity coming in which suffering and loss and grief and pain and broken things are not present and never will be again. I think without a wall that dark I might be inclined to make here home. The bible says in 1 Peter that we are grieved by trials so that the tested genuineness of our faith (which is more precious than gold that does perish) will result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So that means that my faith WILL result in praises and glory and honor (the very things I'm hoping it will do) because its genuineness has been tested by being grieved. And it will result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus, which is in and for eternity. Here is not where praise and glory and honor are fully realized, but it is coming. And when grief is a reminder that hope and glory and honor and praise are coming it is an encouragement. And in those moments grief is literally and actually good grief.