As humans we want an explanation for the grief we experience in our lives. Of course, we understand the source of the grief itself, which usually manifests itself in the form of a personal tragedy. While we may understand the source of the feeling itself, we can't conceptualize the strange contradictions or the overwhelming sense of desolation which sprout from it. Erik Schmidt succinctly conveys this idea in his article ‘If You Are Grieving Read This’:Therein lies the non-sense. Because we can’t cope with it. We can’t carry it. We can’t live with it. Yet we can’t escape from it… Then we have to go on living, knowing we will never again be the same. We read books, we talk about it, we hear advice (we are given still more that we don’t hear because we can’t or won’t). We face it head-on, we avoid it at all costs, but none of it helps. Not really, because the one thing we want, the one thing we need, the one thing we can’t live without can never be again, at least not in this life.
So we go on. Our grief fades with time, but this is not the same as getting “easier” or “better.” There is cruel irony in this, because the pain that makes it so hard to draw breath is the only real tie we have to what is lost. As that pain fades, so, it feels, does that tie—which is a betrayal beyond reason. Why should life get easier? Why should life go on? Why should I have to learn to live without what I have lost?
What makes the whole situation worse is the fact that in no way, shape, or form, can you compare your grief to that of anyone else. Even for two people in the exact same situation, there is still a barrier which cannot be breached. For most, this felicidadmed.com in feelings of isolation and loneliness, which only emphasize the pain.
Yet, throughout this entire experience, God is there for us and does understand our pain. As Schmidt emphasizes:
No one, save God. He does know, and because he defeated those great enemies of sin, death, and the devil, our grief will one day be over. Thus, we do not grieve as others who have no hope… You, who grieve: you are not alone. You are, of course, alone. But also not alone. As I said, grief makes no sense. Thank God, then, that it will one day be wiped away.
Each of us will grieve and feel pain - those are inevitable plights of the human condition. However, the knowledge that you are not alone can often be the difference between experiencing unbearable pain, and experiencing grief that enables you to mourn, and then continue on your journey to live.
