You’re not going to have an appetite. Nothing will taste good. It will feel wrong to enjoy anything. Nothing will bring you joy – not the pretty little things or the usual pleasures that normally make you happy.
If there was a visual, it will flash through your mind at unexpected times and a gag reflex will make you feel like throwing up. Then you’ll break down in sobs wondering, why did this happen?
There will be moments that you feel ok; you’ll forget and feel bad about it. There will be times of normalcy and times where it doesn’t feel like reality. You may grieve today, tomorrow, in three months or a year from now. The most important thing for you to know is that every one grieves differently and it is a process that you can’t control. Let it happen as it happens. It’s ok to be fine most of the time and then to breakdown and not know why. Let yourself cry. Don’t look for the reason. Just let yourself.
You may feel like punching a brick wall, like breaking something; everything. Do that. Break something until your heart can grieve. You can and need to release that anger. If you don’t do it in a healthy way, it will come out in an unhealthy one. Go out and beat the hell out of an old piece of metal until the tears roll, then fall to the ground and let yourself cry.
You’ll lose the flavor for life and ask, why? WHY? Why me, why him? Why her? You may feel abandoned, betrayed, hurt, angry, furious, forgotten, unfairly dealt with, like your life is ruined and unable to return to anything good.
You’ll entertain the question for a few seconds of, what if this didn’t happen? Of how you could take it back and if you could undo it how much better things would be now. Try not to do that.
Treasure the good things about the person and talk about it as much as it comes to mind; don’t avoid it. Encourage yourself by how proud the person you lost would be of you and how much they’d enjoy being with you right now. But don’t stay in the “what if.”
Moving forward will seem impossible and wrong. It will feel like a betrayal to your loved one and to your own heart. It is a special process to navigate. I pray that the Lord shows you how to navigate yours. You may need to talk about it, let the anger, grief, sadness; whatever you’re feeling, out everyday. Talk about it. Let it out. You don’t need to solve the problems or figure it out, but give it to the Lord each time. Ask the Lord to heal you in His time. One day, maybe a year down the road, you’ll realize that you are talking about it less. That the anger is leaving. That the joy is returning. And that may seem like betrayal to you, but know that your loved one is still with you, loving you, proud of you. It will be a process. Don’t rush it. You’ll get tired of listening to yourself and tired of feeling the way you feel, but trust that God is healing you.
“How blessed is the man whose strength is in You, In whose heart are the highways to Zion! Passing through the valley of weeping they make it a spring; The early rain also covers it with blessings. They go from strength to strength, Every one of them appears before God in Zion.”
Let me warn you and comfort you that you will feel like abandoning your faith. Nothing can ever, ever prepare you for grief. The loss of someone sewn into your own soul is never something that you will want to entertain or prepare for. We’re not made to. And love wouldn’t be what it’s meant to be if we held ourselves back from attachment. Loss is apart of the fallen, sin-filled world we live in and it’s just not God’s original intention. So when you lose someone, you feel like part of you is being ripped out; and the uncontrollable finality of it makes you angry at the power that is in charge or what seems like incapable to save. It shakes your world around in a way you’d never ask for.
That heart-wrenching, “betrayal-like” pain will make you feel angry at God and question what you believe.
Let me tell you something that you need to know. God is ok with you being angry with him. HE IS OK WITH YOU ASKING WHY. Do you know why? Because the person we ask questions to, is the person we believe has the answers. Questioning invokes belief. That is what makes the “real-thing” different from the fake. A real God can stand on who he is – true, faithful and good. What’s real is not afraid to be questioned.
If I could say one thing to you, to anyone – It would be,
“Get angry with God, take your (angry, mad, hurt) questions to him and let him prove to you (in a sometimes lonnnng journey) that He is good // faithful // and true.”
It’s ok for that to take awhile. But if you can choose that over bitterness and resentment – then you are conquering your pain. Let yourself feel the things you are feeling, it’s INCREDIBLY important in your healing process to do that, but let God in on the journey. Let him into the hurt, pain and questioning. It’s ok to be angry with him, but choose to trust him. And let Him prove himself to you.
[ It is an extremely special privilege to be invited into this process and extremely special people come out of it. ]
Let me tell you that.
I can’t tell you now- but I must say this here –
“You will never ever want to relive this situation – but if you choose to trust – you will become something that you will never want to take back.”
I’m praying for you. I feel you. My heart grieves with you in a way that needs no apology. And I know that you were made for this. Before you were born, God created you for this.
You are in God’s hands.
Don’t give up.
