A Journey with Grief: My Three Pearls

Though I met him before I was 10 and he was with me through college, it was on the hospital bed that Thanksgiving of 2006 I began to know him.  He had always been there. I did not give him much attention though. I kept my distance and I presumed he kept his.  I lived my life, the way I wanted to, without care for his wishes.

But that Thanksgiving I was broken beyond repair.  I was crushed. Devastated.  In despair. I scrambled for a way out but found none.  I couldn't beg, steal, or barter. I could not hide, deny or shift the blame.

I was in crisis.  

Then he showed up, again. I usually kept him at arms length and did things my way even though I knew he was right. This time, though, I had no strength to lead my grief. Truly, I was helpless.

Sitting on that hospital bed He gently spoke to me with his outstretched, safe and loving hand open towards me.  I heard him offer me a choice. He spoke, with loving compassion on my pain, two paths laid before me. A life of sorrow without hope, filled with anger, bitterness, and more.  And the other, an invitation to feel the pain and experience joy and healing beyond my imagination.  

Joy? How could I feel joy! I was justified in my anger! My child just died! I carried her for 9 months! She was my first born baby.  Reagan Myriam.   

But before her delivery on that hospital bed, in that heartbeat of a moment where her breath departed and mine carried on, I chose the latter. I did not know what I was trusting in but I committed to search for Whom I chose to trust.  I had reached the end of myself.

For the next year, I wailed in my grief alongside Him. I wailed in my loss of Reagan and in my loss of every. other. thing I had not ever grieved. I learned to wail, with Hope.

He led me every step of the way. Every tear that cried, He wiped away. Every doubt that surfaced, He answered. Every. single. time. He was there, just like always, but this time, I received Him.

Knit together in my mother's womb I was fearfully and wonderfully made.  That day in the hospital the One who had always been there became the Lover of my soul, the Savior of my life, my Redeemer and Friend. I was broken with nothing left to give, only space to receive. It took time to get to know Him but it came. I worked to understand and He helped me to know. His love was like none I had experienced before.

Now, I can truly say that no sorrow is ever wasted when turned over to the One who made your soul.  Though the tears drop now, there will be a day where they will drop no more. 

May you, too, risk receiving and allow Him to bring beauty to the broken places of your own story.

Warmly in Christ,

Susan