So many things have happened since my last blog entry. I started dating someone in October 2019. I broke it off this February and realized it wasn’t a good fit in the long run and experienced my first adult break up since my late husband. And then this whole corona virus and quarantine and social distancing has thrown everything and everyone into a big mess of chaos.
All of these things, including the corona virus, is a form of grieving. There is denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. And like people say, nothing is linear when you are grieving a loss of something. Some describe it as a roller coaster but I feel like it’s more like a big ball of scribbles all tangled together like a bowl of spaghetti and it’s hard to know what is up and what is down and how many feelings you are feeling at times.
This article goes into more depth of grief during corona: That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief
For me, there was something about having someone care about my day, check in on me, pray for me when I was having a hard day, and go on dates with that was so nice to have again. And to not have that anymore is just really hard, especially at a time when I feel so isolated from everyone most of the day. I have felt all those stages of grief with this break up and now this COVID-19 disrupts almost every area of the way I do life. It may not feel as extreme as grieving Ben but it is something I’m learning to acknowledge and talk to the Lord about. And I think it’s important for other people to also acknowledge the grief and feelings they may feel during this hard time so they can process it and move through it and get to the other side of it.
Periodically I read out of the Life Recovery Devotional: Thirty Meditations from Scripture For Each Step In Recovery by Stephen Arterburn and David Stoop. It is for people going through the 12 steps of recovery in AA. I am not an alcoholic but I have found I actually have a lot in common with people in AA and have found I relate to a lot of the themes of loss and desperately knowing I need the Lord for help in my life.
One of the entries that caught my eye recently (pg 16) is about having serenity despite powerlessness. It talks about Mary, the mother of Jesus, and how she accepted the invitation of becoming the mother of our Messiah. She invited the chaos into her life but she trusted that God knew how to help her through it. The verse that stuck out to me in the Bible reading of her story (Luke 1:26-56) is the verse that says, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” It made me think about what promises the Lord has given me during this crazy time. I wrote some down:
- l will never leave you
- I will take care of and provide all that you need (people around me have been so gracious to my son and I)
- I love you (nothing, even the corona virus, can separate me from the love and presence of God)
- I am seen by the Lord
- I am not alone
I think it is ok, and we need to, acknowledge all the uncertainties and grief that this corona virus brings up but we also need to let the Lord help us navigate each decision and each step we need to take to get through and to the other side of this hard season in all of our lives. He is bigger than this virus and he knows the best way to help each and every one of us. This corona virus will not last and things are changing daily but the Lord’s promises don’t. I want to focus on the certainty of the Lord and His promises not on the uncertainty of my circumstances.
Closing questions: How can we invite the chaos into our lives but not be overcome by it? What promises does the Lord have for you? What feelings of grief are you feeling during this time that you need to acknowledge and need to let the Lord help you through?
And ask: Lord what is this time of isolation for? My family? Myself? For the church? For other people?
A Grief Redeemed 