Anniversary

I'm traveling east on I-80 today with friends. The last time I traveled this highway I was newly engaged, enroute with my fiancé to Ohio to meet my future in-laws. I can't help recall memories of today's date one year ago. Waking heavy hearted. The nauseous dread in my gut as I picked up the phone. The pain of breaking someone's heart. Breaking mine. The ring nestled in the folds of the down comforter. Staring at it and feeling the naked gap on my finger. The voice of grief summoning my pregnant friend from upstairs. Being held around her swelling belly. Fear that my sadness would penetrate her womb. Sleepless nights, my fingers working jigsaw puzzles to help distract my brain. 

I wish this anniversary marked a point where I could look back from a further place of moving on. That I could see how all this fits into a story for my good. That I could be grateful. I know the truths people gently try to tell me. The new me on the other side of this will be a better me than I knew before. Anger only hurts me, not him. But today my fists clench tightly around that anger. And I won't voice it here for fear of saying something I'll regret. But I don't want a new me. I want something easy. I want my heart to feel normal again. 

He seems to have moved on. Dating someone else. Telling her the same things he told me. Unconcerned with fulfilling his responsibility to me first. He told me over and over I was worth it. But I was only worth it until I broke up with him, until I stopped reassuring him and feeding him and making things work out. That's how it feels at least. Was I only worth what he could get from me? His words feel so empty. And now I worry that I just sound whiny and obsessive. That no one will want to read this because it's not filled with some profound revelation or theology for how to pass through such an anniversary with grace and poise.

 I'll get to a place where I believe the truth. Where I let go of the livid diatribe in my mind. Where peace comes and I trust hearing the Lord speak to me. That's about all the confidence I can muster. But today is not yet that day. And to claim anything different would be a lie.

Audacious Grief

Grief needs room to grieve. The feelings have to come up and out—betrayal, anger, sadness, aching loneliness, despair. They can’t be dispatched with a hug or a prayer or a simple word of affirmation. They can be stuffed and buried, but then they never really go away. So how do we, as the church, create a culture where grief is okay?

Pain makes us uncomfortable. Especially watching it in someone else. So we develop these Christian platitudes that get passed around like fruitcake—we have no problems handing them away to someone else, but come our moment we don’t want to actually eat it.

            God works all things together for good.

            He’s fashioning you into something extraordinary.

            He’s got great purposes for your life.

            He loves you.

            Things will get better.

            His desire for you is to live in joy.

In my grief I shy away from environments where I sense expectations to be happy or to get over my pain quickly. Instead I feel drawn towards sad stories, bittersweet novels, music fraught with swearing. In these I find companions who attune to my pain, who don’t ask me to be anything other than what I am. In scripture also, I feel drawn to those characters that know how to lament. So I’ve spent a bit of time in Job. And in what Job says to God, I’m struck by his audacity.

            Why did I not die at birth?

            Why can I not die? God crush me.

            The arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison.

            I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

            I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

            I loath my life.

            God passes by me, and I see him not.

            My days see no good.

These are words of anguish, hopelessness, complaint. They are raw and honest and unmasked. If Job were here with his pain in our modern congregations, we would turn to each other in our pews and murmur, is he allowed to say that? He doesn’t fit the tidily boxed version of Christianity and the prosperity gospel that subtly infers, how dare we be sad or angry or depressed because Christ has come and made all things new. I command you, rejoice!

Yes, but—more than one thing can be true at the same time. Christ has come. He will make all things new. And yet we still live in this limping, twisted, crap-shot world where broken hearts are more common than not, where every ministry and hope is flawed because every person is human. We all suffer in some manner or another, every day. Because things aren’t right. And Job called it as it was. And God didn’t find wrong in him for doing so.

I don’t trust you, God.

There it is—the gut wrenching truth. I finally got honest with myself and with God and told him that last week. And strangely enough, I felt Him respond that he was pleased with me. As if all he really wants is for me to be aware of where I am. Because He’s not afraid of my pain or distrust or uncensored feelings. He can meet me where I’m at.

I want Him to meet me. It’s hard to find Him, to hear His voice. I feel lost. Like everything I’ve always assumed was solid, suddenly feels uncertain. The floor may entirely fall out and where will I land? And yet, I’m afraid to surrender, to say, What you will, God. It feels like inviting Him back will cause me to cringe and wait for the next painful slug to hit. Like Job, I have my own list of laments.

            Trusting you hurts, God.

            Haven’t I endured enough? Why does the pain keep coming?

            When will there be relief?

            You gave me a hard portion. Too hard. Do I have to say it was good? It doesn’t feel good.

            You are crushing me.

            How do I reconcile your goodness with your choice for my life?

            I hate what you have chosen for me.

            Why will you not speak to me and give me the answers I need?

Admitting such things—though at first feeling dangerous—brings peace and relief. Like maybe, knowing where I’m at, there is hope of moving forward.