In seasons of grief
I can’t stop thinking about a Christmas card we got this year. We have a long list of people with whom we exchange cards with from as far back as our childhood days, college, early marriage and on up to new friends gained each year.
Sometimes we wonder if we should keep sending to people we never see and just pass a card to at Christmas. But we always land on the fact that even if it is just once a year, we say with the card that we thought of them and honored the season we shared on the journey.
The card that has somewhat shadowed both Russ and I arrived after the actual Christmas Day festivities. It is a simple greeting card with some wise men etched in gold and a handwritten message inside.
Word by word printed out by hand explains the difficult year this couple and family shared starting last January when they lost their son. The details are heart wrenching. And we both wept and continue to weep when we talk about it.
I think of the courage it took to pick up a pen and share their sorrow and grief and yet express it with hope. I think of how we laugh sometimes at the highlight reel cards and how it was to read such a vulnerable sharing of a deep pain.
It would have been so easy for them to just sign their names and send it. We are far enough removed and over the years have not really been invested in each other’s children. They could have just stopped sending cards at all. We wouldn’t have thought a thing of it. People drop off sometimes.
But they honored us and the memory of any times shared many years ago to include us in a deep hurt.
They are an example to me.
I confess when I have experienced loss of other kinds than what they walked through, I tend to tighten up the hatches. I tuck it away so I don’t have to talk about it or have you ask questions. I pray that in sharing, they experienced some new healing.
Their lives will never go back to normal, but they can move forward.
As I continue to ponder this I am thankful to know their pain and remember them in my prayers. I believe in and have felt the power of prayer. I know what it is to have relief come quietly in the midst of strong sorrow and to know someone was praying for me.
We all carry loss and grief.
In the right timing and the right ways, I pray we find friends to share the story. You know I tend to picture our lives as one long journey, joined here and there by fellow sojourners. Some walk with us for only a brief season, but the part of the path we shared remains forever a part of who we are.
Blessings on you this day.
Tender thoughts and prayers rest on those of you who have experienced loss this year. I pray you find your people to come alongside you in the grief and in the healing. There is no time frame for our individual grief. We must process it in God’s timing for us.
Hugs and prayers
Laura