rubberband grace

a close sweet friend of mine, experiencing a painful miscarriage last week, one who has sadly already walked this familiar road years ago as well, wrote me a while back...asking me if i ever felt like a hermit, giving up some days because it all seemed too overwhelming...if i ever ate through my pain and could identify with that feeling....she is feeling so defeated and i quickly shot her back this reply and then as i was typing i realized, i need to share this on my blog because this is how i feel right now...i can't seem to get the words out right now when i sit to write, but in pouring my heart out to my sweet friend i realized the words were my heart's expression for now...the best i can do. this was written on february 14th.


".........oh, honey. i feel the same way, a lot of the time.

the new 20 lbs i have are proof that i tried to eat my way out of the pain....it didn't work. wished i had known that then.

it's hard. good days come and you think you got this grief crap licked. then the next morning comes and you find yourself back at start like a stupid chutes and ladder game. then you become so sad, not just at your loss, but at the backstepping, which can create an awful cycle of pity and despair just in itself....you feel like you let others down..the day before you were "fine" and now all the sudden you are definitely not..and you worry they are like.."um, you were ok yesterday but today you are a mess, get it together, trust the Lord, be thankful and shape it up"...then you force yourself into a fake state of pretend bliss that cheapens your heart and doesn't fool God one bit...and then you are angry and short bc you are mad that you had to pretend in the first place...and then you just give up and go back to being a hermit for the day or week to feel safe...

soooooo.

if we allow ourselves to be more fluid, more bungey-like and rubberbandy (totally made that a word)..allow ourselves a bit of God's grace and mercy acting as the stretching agent..then we can vacillate back and forth from bad and good easier with freedom then if we had claimed- "we conquered it" one day, only to feel defeated the next day when we are beat down. we will never conquer this feeling, we will never know victory over this kind of pain, until Christ returns....we are sooooo lucky and blessed that we have that hope...but until then, we pretty much have to admit that we will have an overtime of a game situation, constantly battling who will win that day...us or the grief...some days, we will come out on top, other days we will get our tail kicked...somedays, we will even tie and balance both somehow, with God's grace.....but it will always be an ongoing game.

i am on your team tho...somedays, we just have to sit the bench and watch it all play out, take a breather (or eat some cake)...that's ok. bc then we are rested up for the good days, when we kick satan and grief in the face...and put some points on the board..

this is SOOOOO normal. this process seems to be normal...."

that's how i am feeling these days.....i like the overtime game analogy bc it is an on-going battle...that is what grief seems like. somedays you win, other days you don't. and once you realize that and are ok with it...well, you are half-way there to be able to cope.....