What Will Bring Comfort to Sorrow?

Holy Week last week affected me deeper than usual. I felt the heaviness of Christ’s sorrow and grief in my soul like a huge solid lump weighing me down. Its presence constant and its immensity relentless. Even though I knew the joy and hope on Easter morning, the exhaustion of grief wore me out. I identified with sorrow on a new level.

The past 12 months I experienced many types of losses – some family disruptions, friendship fractures, friends losing loved ones, friends’ loved ones suffering, watching friends’ health slowly deteriorating, watching our country change in ways I can no longer support nor tolerate, so many places and people I love no longer being what they used to be yet not yet what they will become…all losses. No wonder I was ripe and raw for a time of grief.

This was a major reason why I began a course in January and am still taking called Grief Companioning. I wanted to be a better listener and fellow pilgrim with my friends and myself in these journeys with sorrow and grief.  I am learning, unlearning, and relearning so much about the grief process. And yes, it is reopening my own wounds and healing them also. No wonder I was ripe and raw for a time of grief.  

God used all this to open my heart to compassion, understanding and love.  A time also of self-compassion and self-care.  I found hope even in the sadness of sorrow.

Easter promises bring light to even the darkest journeys. The greatest Grief Companion – GOD – will never abandon us and will always stay with us no matter how bleak or sad our journeys are.  Jan Richardson wrote this lovely blessing from her book of the same title, The Cure for Sorrow and it says it all:

“Because I do not know

any medicine for grief

but to let ourselves

grieve.

Because I do not know

any cure for sorrow

but to let ourselves

sorrow.

Because I do not know

any remedy

but to let the heart break,

to let it fall open, then

to let it fall open

still more.

Because I do not know

how to mend

the unmendable,

unfixable,

unhealable wound

that keeps finding

itself healed

as we tend it,

as we follow

the line of it,

as we let it lead us

on the path

it knows.

Because I do not know

any solace

but to give ourselves

into the love

that will never cease

to find us,

that will never loose

its hold on us,

that will never abandon us

to the sorrow

for which it holds

the cure.”

Yes, the love the never ceases, never lose its hold on us, never abandons us!  Thanks be to God!