Grief's Gallows

As I neared the end of my walk tonight, taking my usual route  through the cemetery, I couldn't help but be touched by the sight of a woman stooped over her husband's grave. She was meticulously clearing the overgrowth away from his headstone and its surroundings.  Bright red flowers in trays beside her waited to be planted. I thought of their vibrant colors and how they sang out beauty and life to all whose eyes might fall upon their tender crimson-hued petals, leaves a soft emerald. What a juxtaposition to the death that lay a short distance beneath them, buried in fertile soil; bones being gnawed on by time's relentless hunger. Time consumes everything in the end. The only thing left, spirit.

I felt sorrow for her. She looked so sad. My first instinct was to embrace her, but I didn't want to offend her! I noticed on his grave that he passed away in March of 2008, the same month and year our son was born. Our time of joy, her time of grief...there's a time for every season I suppose. That truth doesn't make it any easier when life's waves take away your castles though. The strongholds in our lives that we cling to sometimes even more than He Who gives all life. God is the only permanent reality. Everything else is shifting sands of  impermanence.

When pain is raw and heart empty, never before is the time more fertile for God to fill it. I prayed God's peace over her as I walked by. I'm not sure she'll ever really know that. Nor does it really matter. What matters is that her soul feels full of His Spirit. For that I pray. That healing will flood her soul that is tethered to grief, releasing her from pain and into the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Have I known grief? Yes. I think we all have. There comes a time when we have to let it go though, or let ourselves go in a way, forming our identity around our attachments, around our pain, instead of being liberated from them and finding our identity in Christ. 

Our savior was hung up on the cross, died a horrible death, and nailed right up there with him was our sorrows, our sins, our grief, our pain. It doesn't mean we won't ever experience those things, but it does mean that we can be liberated from them, not being enslaved to them. Being free in Christ and free from the bondage of pain and sin that bind us from having a fulfilled life of joy.

It's not always easy, but I know I (and hopefully you too)  want to put my grief to the gallows.  I want to trust in the only man that was able to rise again after being taken to the cross. The man who wasn't only a man, but a savior. Who taught us love and compassion and the path to our Father's heart and home. I want to see life's abundant blessings all around, the manifestation of His glory and grace, and know that all is truly  well.  Knowing that, though our savior was resurrected from his death on the cross, our grief can truly be shattered on the gallows if we open our hearts in the vulnerable trust that is necessary, opening our hearts to His will, which is to do good in our lives, to help us prosper and not to harm us. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Are you ready to put your grief to the gallows? Your pain? That which keeps you from peace?


These are just my reflections on the topic of grief as they came up during my walk tonight. It's obviously a much deeper and complicated topic that could fill books and books. It's an issue that should be, in my opinion, approached with sensitivity and love. But these are my thoughts on it tonight.  What are yours?