I grew up hearing "Good grief!" spoken as if it were an expletive, since my Baptist family refrained from words like "hell" or "shit". We had all the same emotion in annoying circumstances, we just used different words, like, "Shoot!" (not that that makes us any better as persons). The accent was always on grief when we said, "good grief" -- never on good.
But that phrase has come to have a new meaning for me. Grief is good. Grief is necessary. Grief is vital, especially after losing a parent as I and many others have experienced this last year. I must enter grief - feel it, reflect on it, come before God and hear him - so that I can be set free.
I returned two nights ago from a twelve day sojourn in "Paradise" - the islands of Hawaii and Oahu where my husband's parents and siblings and their families live. Amid the pleasures and distractions of warm air and water, relatives and friends, shopping, I took time to grieve. I'm glad I did.
Here's what I wrote several days after Christmas as I sat on a patio in Hawaii accompanied by the songs of colorful birds, spikes of yellow ginger flowers and the sea shining blue far below me:
I feel sad this morning, very sad. It's about never having had the kind of connection I desire with my mother and sister. I enjoyed yesterday's time with my friend, yet I'm sad that parts of me she will never understand. And life is so full of relationships that promise to meet my longing to be known and understood, yet then those promising relationships can't be sustained. Sometimes they even break violently.
I'm sad too that I disappoint or hurt my husband Collin and my daughters. Words and images of that happening during the last day or two fly before my mind. Little words, little turnings away from others. I'm sad that acting on what I want denies others what they want. Sad that I fail to understand often what Collin needs at the time he desires it. I'm sad for the many years of livign athome with Mom and Dad and feeling little connection.
I breathe deeply in and out, exhaling the rotten, depleted air and breathing in new and deep. "Come Spirit of God, Spirit of truth, reveal yourself to me."
I admit: I have failed my own dear ones. Maybe this knowledge of my own failure despite my earnest attempts is meant to lead me to humility. (And I did pray for that lately--a dangerous prayer to make.) Maybe this pain at my own failures will enable me to feel and act with mercy towards those who have hurt me. Those hurts I receive from others which go deep and wound my heart were often done nunwittingly. The perpetuators have little idea what they've done.
Nothing in this world can ever deeply, ongoingly satisfy. Not even Paradise.
Yet now, I smell the sweet ginger of forgiveness, of being forgiven as I have forgiven others.
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