Five Reasons to Embrace Grief

AMID the tempest of grief outbound of loss, love builds in the heart and wisdom forms in the mind, when we can allow the present to be as it is.

Here below are five reasons to embrace the inevitable when it comes:

1.      God transforms us in our pain. But, we may never wish to be transformed. None of us do. We may see it as an invasion. We view pain through eyes of cynicism. But pain teaches us what no pleasure can. Only after we’ve been transformed by grief do we see its vast benefits (not that we wouldn’t ever prefer things as they were — for that is understandable). Pain makes us able to see more truly.

2.      Loss is simply love’s situational opposite. We experience loss because we have loved. Such experiences of love and loss teach us to magnify the one whilst we endure the other as patiently as we can, which can seem impossible at times. The one we magnify will be ours again. And that’s a hope we can never lose. We just cannot stop believing that life will turn to our fortune again. Such hope is life. Such life is resilience. Such resilience is purpose. Such purpose is hope.

3.      In grief, God reveals much that we wouldn’t ordinarily see. He reveals the suffering aspects of life. Hence, compassion comes when we’re taken to the abyss. We see more truly. He reveals others; those who care from those who don’t. Those who do care show us something; the fundamental gift of care, and then we’re ever won to the power in caring. In those who care against those who don’t, we see people as they are, no longer as we thought them to be. Of course, God also reveals much more of Himself through our grief, when we’re open to what He has to show us.

4.      Grief forces us to reflect. We’re easily stuck in thought patterns of how good our life was. But just as easily we can resolve such thoughts by simply being still. Only when we allow God to bring us to the end of ourselves are we then blessed by our practice of reflection.

5.      In the sea that is life, loss is the ebb tide and the flood tide is love. Endure one wave and enjoy the next. Loss is the ebbing of a wave of comfort, and that wave will flood in again via God’s compensation. All of life is an ebb and flow; of loving and losing, good fortune and lack, of health and ill-health. Grief teaches us this pattern, and if it weren’t for loss, we would probably never become aware of it. What maturity teaches us is acceptance and awareness.

***

There are benefits to grief, not least of which is the wisdom that sits aside life, learning the ability to remain open to God’s purpose in it, fulfilled in some cases in the life to come.