Grief is all around us. Just yesterday, we lost an icon, a household name, a one-of-a-kind legend. Her name was Dolly Parton.
Most, if not all, of us have something positive to say or to share about her: a favorite song, an endearing story, a quote she lived by. For me, it was her love of Jesus and the song she wrote that another iconic singer, Whitney Houston, made off-the-charts famous.
It's funny how a nation and a world can mourn someone that most of us never met. How we can be brought together, no matter how different, and share songs, stories and tears. What an amazing gift grief can be.
A gift? Really?
As we grieve collectively for a legend, in the still of our hearts, many of us are grieving alone: for a mom, a daughter, an unborn baby, the loss of a marriage or a dream. Whatever the "it" is, we don't have the luxury of millions grieving alongside us. If blessed, we have a choice few.
Even then, we bear our grief alone, in a very individual, sacred way. We alone had the relationship or the place or the thing.
And now it's gone. It is love with nowhere to go. It is holy, this shattered thing we feel. It is ours and ours alone.
I was texting with a friend today who lost her beloved mom a few days ago. Separated by thousands of miles, her family grieves without her, leaving her to watch it all on a tiny screen. They are together, she is alone. It breaks her heart, it breaks mine.
Another friend is going through deep grief over multiple losses. She is way too young to have suffered so much. She feels others are able to articulate so well what they have gone through, are going through. But she can't. Not yet. Why are the words and the vulnerability not coming?
Why indeed?
Isn't this the ultimate grief question? Why? The unanswered questions, the what ifs?
For those that hope in the Lord the questions still arise, try as we might to stuff them down, down, down. If God works everything for good on my behalf, why is my daughter, my only child, dead? Why did both of my parents die within a year of each other? Why is Dolly, a beloved everything, gone at 80 years old?
If He loves me and desires my good, why did He allow this in my life, we ask, not really wanting to know the answer.
If God cannot fail, why do I feel as if He has failed me?
All valid questions. No easy answers.
As I have walked my journey of grief as well as walked alongside others during theirs, I have asked these questions more than once and I have felt great doubt. The soul-crushing, heartbreaking, body-aching doubt. And it's okay.
We may not hear this in our super-spiritual Christian circles. But that doesn't mean it's not true. What good does pretending do for anyone going through the dark night of the soul? We do ourselves a great disservice when we fail to be honest and authentic with each other.
I think the Creator and Redeemer of the universe is fine with our doubt. The Gospels are full of stories of 12 who walked side-by-side with Jesus yet were full of fear and doubt. And questions. Lots of them. They brought all of themselves to Him, all the brokenness and real-ness, and He made them whole. He can do the same with us.
What a beautiful thing!
Loss is a part of life. Indeed, it is all around us. In our world, in our hearts.
All of us have lost something that has left us shattered. So, we grieve. In whatever way we can. There are no rules. There are no timetables.
One of my favorite verses is "Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy" (Psalm 126:5 NIV). What a promise for all who have shed many tears. Joy will come. Maybe not today, or tomorrow or even next year, but eventually it will.
It may take time to find God again, or discover Him for the first time, in the midst of our pain. But He is always there, sitting with us in our sadness, waiting to be invited in.