Will this ever get better? Am I going to be okay again? Why did this happen? How can the circumstances be resolved? How long?
I think these are questions that we all, me included, ask ourselves and others in the midst of grief.
The phrase "How long, O Lord?" is used many times throughout the Psalms, as the psalmist expresses deep sorrow and impatience. The psalms often reassure me that surely the Lord did not mean for us to keep our grief trapped away inside, but we can always run to Him with it. There is a good and beautiful way to lament, and oftentimes it is not a one-time thing, but it is something that should happen over and over again.
Sometimes we think that things are better. We think we are healed. Then, like a wave to our back, the grief hits us out of nowhere, often knocking us down. We seldom see it coming, because it looks different every time. Sometimes it looks like sadness. Sometimes it looks like frustration. Sometimes it looks like confusion. It's hard to understand.
I still have flowers in my room from my grandma's funeral (it was three months ago). They are all dead. Every time I have a moment to think about throwing them away, I decide that I am not ready yet. Perhaps the flowers serve as a reminder of something I lost, but they also serve as a reminder of a sweet gift the Lord gave me for a time. I am not quite ready to let go of them yet.
That is okay. A wise lady once told me that there is no time limit for grief. Not that we should sit in it forever, but there is no need to try to rush through it, or to pretend that it is not there. There are some wounds that I wonder if they will be healed on this side of heaven. The answer to the question of how long something will be hard is not one that I have the answer to.
Pain, it seems, is an expected part of living in a broken world. It is not a question of "if" we will go through something hard, but "when." With that being said, perhaps a more helpful question is, how will you walk through it?
I only know that when the pain hits hard and deep, when the weight of the waves knock you over- over and over again- we can turn to the Lord over and over again.
To the question of whether or not the temporary circumstances are solved, your emotions calm down, the cause of the issue, the solution, the timing- these are questions that I do not have the answer to.
But I do know that in all of these temporary circumstances we can look to God who is sovereign. He is in the business of redeeming all things, in His good timing, as they should come about. We can trust Him.
No matter what we walk through, He is worth running to- over and over again.
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