Grief Revisited

I recently had a vivid dream about my spiritual mom, Kristie (who died of cancer two years ago). I woke up feeling so content and full… then reality hit as I realized it was all a dream. She wasn’t really here. I desperately wanted to go back to dreamland so those moments would last. To have one more hug. To hear her voice speak truth into my life again. To tell her how much I love her just one more time. But I suppose one more time is never enough. We always long for more.

It was hard to drag myself out of bed, so I grabbed my Bible to soak in some truth. As I flipped through the pages, a safely tucked away Christmas card from Kristie stopped the pages from turning. I opened the card and read the words she wrote to me two years ago with tears filling my eyes. Then I flipped some more and read these words from 1 Peter 1:6-9…

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

I clung to this passage as I walked in what seemed like a fog all day.

“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning” (A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis). This is how I felt. Grief was filling me, but I went on with my day… trying to be stronger.

That afternoon I went to school to get some work done. As I was practicing trombone, Kristie’s smile caught the corner of my eye. There is a picture from camp on my bulletin board. I stopped playing and my eyes started to water. I put down my trombone and sat down on the floor of my lesson room, looking at the picture. And I sobbed. Tears streamed down my face and my nose ran. I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Why was all of this coming up now? Why is that wound opening up again?

Because God has more!

He’s opening my grief to take a deeper look.

He’s teaching me to wait on Him and to grieve with Him.

He’s healing and refining me.

He’s chiseling away the impurities and preparing me to meet Jesus.

He’s filling me with His Spirit.

He’s restoring me to Himself day by day.

Kristie has been fully restored in Heaven. I’m still in waiting… Right now it hurts. At the same time, I look forward to “pressing on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3:12b). And ultimately, I’m eager for the day when I’ll see Jesus face to face and be in the fullness of His glory.