What's often said about parenting can also be said about grieving: the days are long but the years are short.
To parents, the statement is a warning against letting busyness and fatigue blind them to how quickly time is passing and how soon their children will leave the nest. To grievers, it’s a recognition of the slow-moving gears of rebuilding life after loss.
Slow moving, but moving nonetheless.
You wake up one day and realize an entire month has passed, then six months, and then a year. Or more. You’ve survived the pain that you thought would surely end you.
Look back now over the ground you’ve covered. Sure, you might have taken a few detours and made a questionable decision or two, but here you stand in a new place. Here, by God's grace you stand. And the big question has morphed from Why? into What’s next?
You've picked up some wisdom along the way, and some patience. Maybe even a new perspective. Maybe your heart has been pulled toward eternal matters. You’re back on speaking terms with God . . . if you ever stopped. You‘re learning things about Him and about yourself.
Dare I say it? … Grief is actually bringing about some good.
You have fuller vision and deeper understanding. You are wiser. You are stronger. You are less certain of some things and more certain of others. Even some of your desires have changed. And here you stand. Here by God's grace you stand.
What’s next?
Maybe you’re not there yet, not ready to tackle what’s next, or to even think about it. That's okay, but be encouraged to know that the question is coming. You do have a future.
Is life going to be different than you had hoped? Yes. Is God finished with you? No.
There is a next.
© 2022 by Tim Grissom. All rights reserved.
One morning a few weeks ago I looked out my kitchen window and noticed that the garbage can I’d taken out to the street the night before had been moved. The city’s trash hauler was due any minute, so if I didn’t get out there quickly and set it back in place, my garbage wouldn’t get picked up until the following week.
Fret not; I made it in time. Order was restored . . . kind of. In my mind this very little situation started to grow: Who moved the can? Why did they move it? Could it have held two weeks worth of garbage if I hadn’t seen it in time? How can I keep this from happening again?
I rapidly shifted from confusion to irritation to worry to prevention strategy . . . over a garbage can.
Little things often trigger my worst reactions.
Thankfully, God reeled me back in, maybe chuckling a little as He did, and then reminded me about the birds and the wildflowers. He takes care of them without their tactical input and He takes care of me—in the little things and the big ones.
Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add one moment to his life span by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Observe how the wildflowers of the field grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. (Matthew 6:26–29)
I don’t need to strategize a defense to keep things from going wrong (as if I could). I can’t offer God any more assistance than the birds do, or the flowers. And they seem to be doing just fine with Him in control.
➢
I’m not saying that grief was the onset of my obsessing ways, but it sure gave them a boost. The loss of a loved one, and the many changes it sets in motion conspires against our sense of order and control. Worrying and obsessing seep into the cracks that grief has opened up.
But it never really was our order, was it? We were never tasked with holding our world together. And perhaps this is one of the favors that loss does for us—if we let it. It helps us notice the little things God does, like watching over birds and flowers and kinetic garbage cans. And we know that if He cares that much about the little stuff, He certainly cares about the big.
© 2022 by Tim Grissom. All rights reserved.
Updated: Mar 24, 2022
Bill was an usher at our church. Of course, he was much more than that: husband, father, grandfather, business owner, friend. But what I remember most about Bill is that he was an usher at our church.
If that seems too small of a way to characterize a man’s life, I’ll bring it down even more, to one encounter between Bill and me on a Sunday morning.
I was in the habit of arriving at church at the last possible moment and then leaving as fast as I could—usually during the closing prayer when everyone’s eyes were (supposed to be) closed. My grief was still new and I wasn't yet comfortable sitting alone in church. Plus, I desperately wanted to avoid the “How are you?” and “What can I do for you?” conversations that were sure to come in the lobby or the parking lot—mostly because I didn’t know how to answer.
The service was nearly over. The sermon had been preached, the announcements had been made, and now it was time to collect the offering. If the typical order of things was observed, this would be followed by the benediction, which was the optimal moment for me to make my aforementioned escape.
So, I’m sitting there waiting for Bill to make his way to my row and hand me the offering plate so I could then pass it along to the person sitting next to me. But Bill broke the usher's code. While handing me the plate, he stopped and put his hand on my shoulder. He left it there even after I passed the plate, so I looked up at him. When we locked eyes, he gave me a slight nod, then slipped his hand away and moved on.
That was it. A few seconds of silent comfort passed from friend to friend. A caring look. A gentle hand on the shoulder. One simple act of compassion on one typical Sunday morning . . . and I still feel it twenty-two years later.
Without saying a single word, Bill told me that he saw me, that he knew my heart was hurting, and that he cared.
Comfort doesn’t always need a grand or eloquent delivery. Sometimes a hand on the shoulder is all it takes.
© 2022 by Tim Grissom. All rights reserved.