Good morning…
In our post We Need Friends, I shared about our grieving friend who lost her first grandchild to a miscarriage.
“Oh my!” one reader wrote from South Carolina. “God is surely speaking in stereo AGAIN. My heart hurt and my eyes pricked with tears this morning when I read about your class participant’s loss. In 2012 I lost my first grandchild to adoption, and that was one of the most secret, shame filled, dark hurts I have ever known.”
“I had a very small community of Christian women who I chose to tell,” she explained. “They chose to love me through it, to help me claim it as grief, and to give voice to my loss. I am forever grateful for these friends and to this day my short testimony is that I would be in a ditch somewhere if I didn’t have Christian sisters walking with me through life. I’m an only child and a couple of my closest friends actually call themselves my sisters. They enrich me and bless my life.”
“Keep doing what you are doing, be authentic, be raw,” she encouraged. “It is so easy to hide behind beautiful things, but I think God calls us away from the surface to the deeper parts of ourselves, where sorrow and joy yearn for honest expression.”
“Your email is such affirmation to me that we need to shed the shame around these painful parts of life,” I replied. “We need to claim our private losses as real and honestly share our grief with trusted friends. As an only child, I bet your friends truly are your spiritual family. We know that Jesus, who had earthly parents and siblings, leaned into his closest friends for his deepest support during his darkest hours. Just like Jesus, we are wise to pray for God to guide us into friendships that are real, reliable and mutually beneficial. Investing time with friends who hear our hearts and help us through hard times is the best gift we will ever give ourselves.”
“Might I anonymously share our email exchange to highlight how important it is for us to lean into the God who grows for us a web of support during times of great need?” I asked. “I think sometimes with miscarriage, adoption and abortion experiences, people forget that each grandparent might also be losing a lifetime of dreams for a child they had hoped for, prayed for and already love. Understanding the raw pain of everyone involved in these private losses helps us to be kinder and gentler to each other.”
“Thank you for your candid vulnerability,” I replied as she gave permission to share her unique grief as a grandmother.
Jesus… took Peter, Jacob, and John with him. However, an intense feeling of great sorrow plunged his soul into agony. And he said to them, “My heart is overwhelmed and crushed with grief. It feels as though I’m dying. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Then he walked a short distance away, and overcome with grief, he threw himself facedown on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if there is any way you can deliver me from this suffering, please take it from me. Yet what I want is not important, for I only desire to fulfill your plan for me.”
Then an angel from heaven appeared to strengthen him (Matthew 26:37-39, TPT).
During seasons of grief we are also strengthened by angels on earth as we share our agony. Thanks be to God, who cultivates the healing love of our closest friends.
…Sue…
