Will the Pain Ever Go Away?
Grief is a strange thing. It’s crazy
how a song or a memory can toss you back into the throws of heartache and pain.
Many teach Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining,
depression, acceptance) to
people who have recently experienced the death of a loved one. Unfortunately,
few people move through these stages in the way you climb a ladder, moving from
one rung up to the next. For most of us, it’s more like we are moving up and
down a slinky. We make progress and something happens to throw us back into a
previous stage.
Last
Sunday was that kind of day for me. God has brought tremendous healing into my
heart since Michael’s death seven years ago. He has not only brought me to a
point of acceptance, but to a place of transformation. I was sitting in church
last Sunday when our choir began to sing Laura Story’s song, Blessings. As I heard them sing, the
tears began to fall.
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise”
These words reminded me of the tremendous grace and mercy
God has given me in the wake of my grief. I was doing ok until the congregation
was asked to sing “It is Well.”
You see, we
sang this at Michael’s funeral. A few days earlier, a dear friend lost a family
member to suicide and walking through the pain and hurt with her family and
hearing this song seemed to drag me back to the horrendous day of Michael’s
death.
Even though
I have come a long way, in that moment, the pain was very raw.
People ask
me, when do you stop hurting? When does the pain go away? The truth is, you
never stop grieving. In time, the pain becomes less intense and appears less
often, but it never goes completely away.
Another
misnomer is that grief only affects those who have lost someone to death. Loss
is loss. It doesn’t matter if the loss is due to divorce, loss of dreams, loss
of hopes, or loss of job. Grief happens when we experience loss that causes
suffering or distress.
If you are
hurting from a loss, take heart. The only way to find healing is to walk
through the pain. It takes courage and stamina, but you will survive. For me,
the joy came when I moved from surviving to thriving. Hang in there!