Grief is really hard.  Sometimes you can see it coming and sometimes you can’t.  I recently lost a friend unexpectedly.

I am so grateful that I was at the ocean when I found out.  The ocean is so healing for me.  It puts things in perspective about how small I am and how big God is.

I took a long walk on the beach and it was just what I needed.  As I was walking along the shore and watching the waves crash in I began to really think about this whole emotion of grief.

That’s exactly what grief does.  It just crashes in on you.  There are moments when you are doing fine and then someone says something or your mind recalls something and a wave of grief crashes in on you.

Sometimes when you experience new fresh grief it awakens an old place of grief.  It hits you hard in your heart and you can feel it surface deep in your gut.

Unfortunately, I have experienced a lot of loss in my life.  Cousins when I was young, my aunt, 2 uncles, all four grandparents, my sister-in-law, my father-in-law and a cousin my age recently.  I was a youth pastor for years and walked alongside parents who grieved their children, children who grieved the loss of a parent, and even brought one beautiful girl into our home for 10 months who lost both of her parents.  I am a friend who has walked with friends during the loss of spouses and children.  I have been up close to and hated illness, cancer and suicide with the best of them.

We have the tendency to want to avoid the waves of grief when they come.  We want to avoid the emotion of grief and how it makes us feel.  Sometimes we want to numb it out with other things, because we want to pretty much feel ANYTHING other than that deep empty terrible void of grief.  I have tried all of these remedies and realized how futile they are.

We avoid it.  We run from it.  We stuff it.  We are like nope, not doing it.  We legitimately try to opt out of this unwanted emotion as if that is even possible.

This may shock or annoy you, but hear me out.  Instead of doing those things, would you consider inviting grief in?  Imagine yourself sitting on a bench and saying “okay grief, pull up a seat next to me”.

The reason that I would encourage you to do that is because we really can’t run from it.  Grief will just keep following us.  We can’t stuff it.  It may stay hidden for awhile,  but trust me, it will resurface and expose itself in some really ugly ways later on.

What I have come to find is that healing comes when we allow that wave of grief to come in.  Not just that, but if we take it a step further, and I know it sounds crazy, but if we invite it in and make a place for it, we will find peace.

Instead of running from grief because that’s what causes anxiety, that’s what causes depression, that’s what causes these other things to surface.  Instead of doing that, when I embrace the grief and I can face what I am feeling and say “God you know what?  I don’t know why this happened. I don’t have answers.  It’s not fair.  There’s a man who lost the love of his life and they had so many plans.  There are two young, beautiful girls that don’t have a mom. There’s a legitimate void.”

I can’t really get answers to those questions, but if that’s what I am feeling I need to get it out.   Instead of running from or stuffing my grief, sadness and anger I need to face them head on.  I can be honest with where I’m at.  I don’t have to be okay with what happened.  I don’t have to agree with God on it.

I am beyond thankful that I serve a God who is big enough to handle my anger, doubt, and at times my childlike struggle with his authority.  Hear me when I say I don’t have to make peace with the circumstances of the situation in order to have peace to move on.

God tells us in Philippains 4:6-7  “Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds.”

Life can be so hard.  The burdens we bear can be so heavy.  But be comforted that we don’t have to go through life alone.  He exchanges our heaviness for peace when we come to him with our burdens.  It is a peace that surpasses all we can understand.

He didn’t promise us answers, he promised us his presence.  And in his presence I can find a greater sense of purpose.  A greater sense of love.  A greater sense of peace.  That not only equips me to keep going, but to keep going with strength and intention.

As I watch the waves on the beach come in there’s the tumultuous, almost violent, force of the wave that is being created and then it crashes onto the shore and there’s a calm that follows.

If I allow myself to really process and sit in the emotion and be okay with feeling the sadness...  I find myself asking these questions, “Why am I feeling so sad?  Because I feel loss.  Why am I feeling loss? Because I loved.  Because I loved deeply.  Because I was inspired.  Because my life was made better by this person.  Now I am feeling loss.  I am feeling a void.”

What I find is when I allow grief to come in and take a seat next to me… when I embrace the grief, what I discover is the gratefulness that I had such a good friend.  I encounter a gratefulness that I was up close to a life lived well.

So what happens when I let grief find it’s place in me? I am overcome with gratitude and peace.  I am overwhelmed with the grace of God and I feel a peace from God come over me.  I am able to be filled up with the love that others need me to bring to the table, because they don’t know how to process and handle the grief they are feeling.

Grief is real. Loss is real.  And feeling the void is real.  Don’t run from those emotions.  Invite them to take a seat next to you.

Allow that grief to be turned into peace.  You will uncover a peace and a gratitude that comes from having experienced such a love.  You would not feel such a deep loss if you did not know so great a love.

Because your life was so blessed by someone that has now moved on there is a void.

As I let grief take a seat next to me and turn my heavy heart toward God I found the greatest sense of peace that my friend lived her one and only life to the very fullest.  She modeled love and passion and a life of service to others.  I will continue to celebrate her life by the way I live my life.

How grateful I am that I know God and I know what awaits me.  And I will see her again one day.

I may not know your loss or the name of your loved one who has moved on, but God does.  I hope that these words brought you encouragement.  You are not alone.  You are seen, known and loved by your creator.  If you have a heavy heart I pray you consider bringing your burdens to God. Allow him to give you a peace that surpasses all understanding that will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.