When you lose someone of great importance, the world seems to move forward at this weird rapid pace while you are standing still trying to wrap your head around what just happened. Death is a crazy thing. We all know that it is going to take place and that we are all going to face it, but when it happens to those closest to us… we are never ready. We are never ready when it is unexpected, and we are never ready when it is a slow drawn out process and we are just praying for Jesus to take them home. We sit in the shock of what just happened willing them to just take one more breath, even though we know they are in a much better place. A place that we all wish to be.
My family has been rocked my tragedy over the past few weeks. Losing my grandpa to a battle with cancer at the end of January, after he lived a long amazing life. And then losing a cousin unexpectedly the past week. How do you make sense of either situation? You don’t. I find myself sitting at my desk or wherever and I’m just zoning out. I’m not really thinking of anything in particular… I think my brain is trying to fit the pieces together of a puzzle that doesn’t have the correct pieces. I tell myself all the cliché things – but the ache and longing for what is no more persists.
I honestly don’t know how people are able to wrap their minds around these losses without the hope found in Jesus. Even though the hurt and the pain is so fresh right now, I have the hope that I will get to see my family again. They are out of pain (physical and mental) and living their best life in the best place. We continue to wake up every day and have to figure out how to do life again without them, so the weight of this new friend, grief, hits us like a truck. I picture that when my cousin entered heaven early Wednesday morning that the first person he saw was my Grandpa ready to hug him and ask for a smack.
How do we make sense of something that makes no sense? How do we morph this pain into something that is more manageable – it’s impossible some days. And that’s ok. Sometimes we have the allow the pain that this life brings to break us. When we allow the weight to break us, God will step in and put us back together a little bit stronger, a little bit wiser, and a little bit more beautiful.
The thing that I have been pondering the most has been how can I love people well, better? Especially when the waves of life hit so hard, one after the other. Maybe it starts in how I approach people. Instead of me asking, “how are you?” – which can be impersonal and habit. I should be asking “How are you holding up today?” It’s a more personal question that shows I’m ready to pause and dive into the hard with you instead of just asking the question as I continue to walk by and not really listen.
God teaches us to lead with love and grace. The Bible continually shows how messed up people can appear… how people are just hanging on by a small thread of hope. Even when nothing makes sense, I know that I can lean into Jesus – my one constant because he leans in a whispers to my soul, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Jesus meets us right where we are, He understands because he lived the pain that the human life brings. He understands it all and meets us there and gives us exactly what we need.
He is the hope in the hard.
So, I’m going to slow down, and I’m going to ask, “How are you holding up?”