Posts
No longer
is there a voice in my ear
telling me how the walls that crumble should be rebuilt,
what is the best route to get from lost to where I want to be,
why I should tell my landlord that the squirrels have developed a taste for his house.
There is no advice, no fixing, no critiquing
when I don't want to hear it,
and worse,
there is still none
when I do.
Today I had to call you,
because you calling first might not cross your mind
and I needed a voice to give advice, to fix, to critique.
With your voice in my ear
(not like his, but the best we both could do)
we talked of happy.
How too often I think of happy as the one thing
I want and do not have,
the one thing He does not give,
rather than the oxygen I'm inhaling
and the children I'm loving,
the family in my heart
and the hope tucked away inside my chest
as it rises and falls with this life
that was breathed by God Himself.
We have words, you and I,
and we have silence.
We have blood that is shared,
and for today,
that is enough.
I'm getting better at understanding your blog posts. Haha. I know I keep saying this, but I very much wish I could take away the pain and loss, give you fullness and wholeness and joy in place of your brokenness and emptiness. Suffering seems like a mystery; He seems to only give us only just barely enough to get by sometimes, instead of fullness. Yet His mercies are always being shown, and even when the waters seem to overwhelm us, He doesn't let us become truly drowned. I'm struggling with that myself, even right now. No one can truly enter into what another person is experiencing, but I pray that the One who truly and intimately knows what you are feeling would comfort you and give you what you need, and so much more besides.
ReplyDelete:)
ReplyDeleteAnd perhaps I'm getting more transparent, too, as I realize that hiding behind layers of words isn't always the best option.
Thank you for your friendship and sympathy and general being-there. It's okay, though, truly. I had a hard day yesterday, yes, but this poem was actually born out of gratitude that I have a brother to talk to when I need to (and not just 1, but 4!). You mentioned that you wish you could take away the pain and loss and give me fullness and wholeness and joy in place of brokenness and emptiness. What I'm finding, though, is that fullness and wholeness and joy come--paradoxically--through those very things that we may wish could be taken away. Sometimes they are needed. And God is no less good if He doesn't tell us why. Like you said, His mercy is present always, and we never go under the water for too long before His hand pulls up back up for air. I know that you understand exactly what that means. :)
At heart, Cadie, I'm okay. There's nothing to fear. The mercy of God and the hope of Christ cover, awaken, remind, steady, assure. Yes, the topography of grieving requires some ups and downs that come without warning. There will be hard days. But ultimately death can be viewed as a story of redemption for those in Christ, and this is the telling I try to choose during those low points.
Thanks again for your words.
It is good to look to tell the redemption story in the hard times of grieving.
ReplyDeleteLoneliness is part of the general human condition, but at certain times and seasons in life we feel it more acutely. And rightly it is always there, I think, because it reminds we wait for the day when God will dwell among us and wipe away every tear. So we long for it. Loneliness and Longing are twins.
That said, I think there are different lenses through which we see loneliness in life, different experiences of it. Or, to use a different metaphor, different ways in which we taste it. One way in which grief manifests itself is in a profound, gut-wrenching, sense of loneliness that is often beyond words. So you have that beyond the normal burdens of loneliness which a single person often carries. For whatever reason, in my experience of grief I didn't expect this burden of loneliness. Tears, sadness, melancholy, or any number of things like that I expected. But I could not understand why I felt such agonizing loneliness (after all, I had plenty of people in my life!), and I didn't associate it with grief for some time. It felt like an unaccountable affliction. Then I remember one night dreaming, and the substance of the dream was mostly just incarnated loneliness, which in its severity woke me. And in that sudden moment of wakefulness the thought came to me, "This is grief."
Smarter people than I are quicker to associate loneliness with the expression of grief. That understanding doesn't mater it lighter, but at least it can make one feel more grounded in the storm to know the reasons for the things we feel. But even more to know that while we feel a loneliness for when all will be reunited, even now God does not leave us alone. He walks with us in the loneliness until we make it Home.
Thanks for the words, Rundy. That's what I'm discovering--that loneliness is impossibly intertwined with grief. And you're right about the inexpressibleness and pretty much all the other stuff. The grief is changing, and in some ways seems so much more raw now that I'm four months in than it did when I'd been without for one. As much as God is stitching me up in some ways, in others I feel wide open. The matter of aloneness is a complex one even outside of grief, though. Truly only God knows us, and it's only when we understand that that we can make the loneliness Home. To be honest, I think loneliness is preferable to being so comfortable and complacent here that we aren't longing for God in a way that is outside our ability to experience Him now. The hope of final communion with Him is that much more precious.
DeleteThis poem cuts in so deep, Deb. I love you.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love you back.
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