Good morning…
“I just feel disconnected,” she said as we walked and talked. She recently buried a beloved family member, her dear dog passed away, and, like many of us over these COVID holidays, she has lost the ability to safely gather with extended family and large groups of fun friends. Cut off from many of her dependable sources of comfort, she also really misses warm hugs, close contact, and unmasked bonding smiles.
“When we are grieving we want to stay in a safe harbor,” earlier I had written to her a quote from David Kessler. “It’s a good place to be for a while. It’s where we refuel, rebuild, repair. But in the same way ships are meant to sail, we are eventually meant to leave our safe harbor, to take the risk of loving again, to find new adventures, to live a life after loss, and maybe even to help another. I tell people who feel stuck in their grief that eventually the way forward is to help another person in grief” (Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, 80).
“I really like this,” she wrote back. “I feel like I just want to be in a safe harbor (me alone). I’ve been unmotivated to exercise, make time for friends, go to church, spend time in prayer, and I don’t know why. I’ve often said out loud that I only have so much bandwidth right now and I’m spread thin. Before my losses I was already living with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule, and now I’m also aching with the sadness of an underwhelmed soul. How can I can refuel, rebuild, repair?”
“This past week I wrote three letters to close friends of mine who lost their fathers in the past few months,” she said as we bundled up and stepped out in the cold together. “When I received their texts letting me know how much my letters meant to them, it refueled me. As much as I want to crawl in my sloth mode and have my own time, God has gifted me to love and that requires the giving of my time. It felt good to venture out beyond my own harbor.”
How do we balance our yearning to rest in a safe harbor alone while still reaching out to share love with others grieving their own losses? Only God knows how to restore our delicate inner balance, that’s why we are each given the same single task. “Love Me with all your heart and mind, soul and strength,” our LORD regularly repeats one intimate invitation. Anchored in our central place of safe harbor, we are gently guided to venture out, balancing our time between loving our self well and loving others well. One-on-one with God, we rebuild our life after loss, one small stick after another small stick.
God never says, you should have come yesterday,
he never says, you must come again tomorrow,
but today if you will hear his voice
Today he will hear you.
He brought light out of darkness
not out of lesser light,
He can bring thy summer out of winter
though thou have no spring.
All occasions invite his mercies,
and all times are his seasons.
– John Donne
Might this dark, disconnecting winter be a season of safe harbor, a unique occasion inviting us to rediscover divine daily mercies?
Your mercies, God, run into the billions; following your guidelines, revive me (Psalm 119:156, MSG).
…Sue…
P.S. Thank you, Corinne Adams, for this restorative photo of rebuilding a life one stick at a time.
P.S.S. If you are looking for a way to meet the needs of others this dark, chilly winter, please join Northside Preschool’s Used Coat Drive! Don’t know what to do with a winter coat that no longer fits you, your child, or your spouse? Donate it to the used coat drive between December 8th – 10th during morning carpool, 8:15-9:00 am (Northside United Methodist Church, 2799 Northside Dr NW, Atlanta, GA 30305).
