Grief Part 2

June 10. 

To say it was a shock is an understatement. If you don’t live in the Commonwealth of Virginia then allow me to enlighten you. Our governor declared his executive order for all Virginians to stay home until June 10th.

We though we were grieving before. Before the news hit, the day seemed to already be off to a rough start. Kids were screaming, I was yelling. I tried to keep them in their separate corners. I tried to keep them focused on work. I tried to keep my cool. None of it seemed to work. I put myself in timeout. My closet is my favorite place to sit and hide and take a few deep breaths and say a quick prayer. 

By the time the news broke, I think most of us were feeling the pain of Monday in our third week of “whatever...we don’t have a normal.”

I started this week with a post on grief yesterday. I suppose by admitting that’s what it was, I opened the floodgate for all the feelings to come rushing in. Boy did they overtake me.

I love that Brene Brown recently talked about comparative suffering. We don’t allow ourselves to feel our feelings because certainly someone somewhere has it much worse than we do. We don’t give ourselves permission to feel upset, hurt, lonely, scared, anxious, or angry because we know others are dealing with so much...so much more...right?!

Shame draws us inward. It pokes it’s ugly ego-centric head into our thoughts and emotions and causes us to deny what we truly feel. Empathy allows us to understand, relate, and connect with what others are going through and feeling...because we feel something similar, too. It’s okay to feel. It’s okay to grieve. It’s okay to not be okay. Praise the Lord for all you honest enough to be honest with me after I posted about our tough day yesterday. What I’ve learned from being open and honest is that I’m not alone. Someone can usually relate. Someone can usually sympathize. Even if you aren’t able to relate to my present situation, you can usually empathize with how I feel. That’s good!

We have to give ourselves permission to not be okay and then we have to give ourselves the grace to know that we aren’t expected to have it all figured out. We aren’t expected to just get over it. We have to give ourselves grace enough to not be okay and leave room for God to fill in the gaps.

I was grieving Easter but June 10th feels like someone just came and put a pin in my balloon of hope, popping it into shreds of impossibility. I don’t have to be okay with it. I just have to lean into the grace and strength of my Savior when these days are tough. The reality is, literally no one is alone. No matter how quarantined you may be, we are all going through this together. We are all grieving and dealing with some level of hurt or pain or loss. There are times I’m thankful all the excess has been removed. There are other times I can’t imagine going back to the former. Still, I grieve and that allows me to mourn what was and make room for what is to be.