Good morning…
“Dear Sue, I hope you are doing well,” she emailed after yesterday’s post, The Blessing Hidden In Grief. “I miss our walks but returning to my position at school fills my days. My students are wonderful. Teaching them fills my heart with joy, and I’m so grateful for this bridge to whatever comes next in my life.”
“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “I don’t know what happens next and I’m okay with that…well, at least much more than I would have been before I lost my husband. I used to be a planner. Now I immerse myself into the day that I’m living. Ironically, when I try to make plans, they often don’t work out, so I’m learning to wait on the Lord.”
“Last year I received the gift of grace as expressed by Henri Nouwen,” she elaborated. “When Nouwen says, ‘Our grief makes us experience the abyss of our own life in which nothing is settled,’ I know. My heart ached. I felt the ‘shifting sands,’ and how life is vanity or vapor as written about in Ecclesiastes. Though I felt this on some level when my mother died, losing my partner in life brought extreme grief and that combined with the isolation of the pandemic and my empty nester house led me down into a valley of sadness.”
“On Sunday the pastor talked about walking through the valley of the shadow of death,” she continued. “He said that we don’t remain in it. As he preached, I nodded my head because I understood within my soul the difference between those two prepositions, through and in. It is because of grace. My Disciple study this week is about grace: ‘To appreciate grace, one has to feel a distinct sense of helplessness—of being in a predicament beyond one’s own solving.'”
“As uncomfortable as that sense of helplessness is, it is exactly what gave me the gift of grief,” she explained. “To paraphrase Nouwen, the first steps of the dance ARE taking place. As a former ballerina I love the comparison of living life as a dance, and I am grateful for the grace-ful steps with my partner, the Holy Spirit. I still mourn my soulmate but my grace partner is guiding me in a pas de deux of blessings and ultimately wholeness.”
“Love you,” she concluded.
“Wow,” I replied. “What a beautiful expression of the multicolored strands of grief and gratitude, depression and dancing. You have had the desire and the courage to step into the unfamiliar dance with God in so many pretty and painful ways. Your willingness to remain connected at church, at school, in our loving community has helped to unpack the hidden gifts of grief. It is an incredible work of the Holy Spirit.”
“You know me and you know I am always thinking of the larger community and how important it is to share with each other the exquisite experiences we ordinary people have with God,” I said. “Your words put flesh on many of our common weary bones. Might I craft a blog post anonymously with these words the Holy Spirit had brought up between us? You know you can say yes, no, or let me think about it.😉”
“I love you too and the way God is living through your true self as you grieve your dear soulmate,” I concluded.
“Thank you for asking and yes, you can,” she replied. “The Holy Spirit is leading the way, so I’m comfortable with the dance’s variations.”
Now may God, the fountain of hope, fill you to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as you trust in him. And may the power of the Holy Spirit continually surround your life with his super-abundance until you radiate with hope! (Romans 15:13, TPT).
…Sue…
