Today is one of those days that is just tough slogging.
I'm miserable. I wanna hide in a hole. I don't want to talk to anyone. Everything it seems makes me want to cry. Just a no good day where grief has completely infiltrated every mundane part of my life.
These are the days where I just wait for the bubble to burst. A change of pace, an unexpected grace, a divinely appointed conversation, a weep-fest. Something - anything - that will bring me out of this debilitating despondency and into something serene, still, and life-giving.
For three nights in a row I've been up late, unable to sleep. I journal, I read, I watch a movie, but I am restless, mopy, and curfuffled, unable to get to sleep until exhaustion finally overcomes me late into in the evening.
I feel utterly ruined.
I go about my day, shuffling and sweeping the broken pieces of me from one place to another.
Broken pieces. My
inward state is more than just an overturned box of puzzle pieces. A
pile of puzzle pieces - no matter how many or how difficult - is still
orderly. Each piece has purpose and a consistent form.
Instead,
I liken my inward state to a porcelain figure dashed upon the rocks,
shattered and scattered, jagged pieces without any uniformity, each piece unsightly and fragile, needing to be handle carefully lest it breaks further or wounds with its sharp edges.
This is what grief does to the inner person.
But. I still have things to be grateful for.
God's mercies and blessings are near even now as I live in shadow and darkness.
These are quiet comforts that do not still the storm that rages around and within me, but they are treasures to remind me that I am not alone and that this is not the end.
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Today, a friend of a friend had the worst of days, the worst day of many many worst days.
Unless the LORD intervenes, she is going to die.
Unless the LORD says "This shall not be", the cancer will win.
A young life will be extinguished, a chapter closes (prematurely in our eyes) and another chapter begins in the really real life found in God's presence.
My mopiness all of a sudden looks quite small and selfish. Real, valid, yet quite insignificant in the present moment.
And so tonight becomes the fourth night in a row that I'm up much too late with my thoughts and my grief. But this night, I have put aside my sorrow to bear the sorrows of the many others who are waiting to see what the LORD will do.
And as I pray I've listen to
Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens. The tone, the words, the tension of it all ... the song places me right in the very center of this unfolding tragedy, as if I am watching a play move from the second to final act.
What will the LORD do?
A glance at the title will tell you little about what the song is about. It's a love song, but a lament. It begins and ends with sadness, for despite the fervent faith of many, the beloved passes away.
It's beautiful, it's terrible, it's brutally honest. There is very little good news in it. Yet the words have been a solace and a guide to me on my path of grief. Maybe you can relate. Click the link for the full lyrics or you can listen to it below.
Tuesday night at the Bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens
....
All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see His face
In the morning in the window
All the glory when He took our place
But He took my shoulders and He shook my face
And He takes and He takes and He takes
~ Sufjan Stevens "Casimir Pulaski Day"
Oh God have mercy.
G&P
- Andrew
