I read somewhere that sorrow and suffering are good teachers. They are not the electives we tend to choose, but at some point or another, we are all enrolled in their classes. Eccesiastes 7:4 says, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” More evidence that sorrow and suffering bring more with them than pain. While listening to more of C.S. Lewis’ “A Grief Observed,” he quoted Matthew 5:4, where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Like Lewis, I can hear Matthew 5:4 and remember acquiescing to its truth, or even teaching it, before I was plunged into the pool of grief myself. It didn’t hit me then like it hits me now. I certainly read Ecclesiastes before, but I didn’t take it to heart and seek to be in a house of mourning. What is the point of that? I preferred mirth, laughter, and ease.

My childhood was not an easy one for many reasons. Nor has my adult life been easy. It’s very much a mixed bag; joyful and beautiful alongside painful and ugly. Yet as I look back from my current vantage point, I see those twin teachers present. And while I certainly took a few plunges into the shallow end of the pool, I have spent much time and energy running the opposite direction. Ditching class. Believing I know better. Trying to control exactly how much pain I should feel, if pain is unavoidable and I have to feel it.

Mom’s cancer diagnosis, suffering, and finally her death put me in the deep end. Sorrow and suffering didn’t stop to ask me if now was a good time. It just happened. It just was. And now it is, and it isn’t going away. Thanks to a dear friend, and a book called “Beyond the Darkness” by Clarissa Moll, I am now coming to see that the grief I am feeling is one of my new lifelong companions. It’s not an injury I will recover from. It does not have a shelf life. It will not eventually leave. It will morph and change, as I do, of course, but it is with me for life. It’s my new companion. I cannot yet call it my friend, but perhaps I will eventually get there.

You see, I don’t like my new companion. I don’t like her at all. She’s demanding. She takes most of my energy. She cries a lot. At the most inconvenient times. She doesn’t play by our society’s rules. She does not have a regular schedule. She can keep me up at night or make me fall asleep in the middle of the day. She’s taken away my appetite at times, yet she’ll also make me crave unhealthy foods. She changes my relationships, because other people see she’s next to me, and they react accordingly. She’s intrusive, ever present, and someone I never would have invited into my life. I don’t like her at all.

And.

And I’m learning she is a gift. She has a lot to offer. I don’t even know a quarter of it, I’m sure, and I already see this. Because as soon as I stopped running from her and started listening, I heard wisdom. I felt pain, too, searing pain of the chasm separating Mom from me. Strangely enough, I started seeing that pain as a gift in itself. It’s love for Mom that causes me to feel this grief. It’s one side of the double-edged sword of suffering: the side of Genesis 1-2 and the end of Revelation, the side which screams out that life is not supposed to be this way, and it will not always be this way. It’s the aching for Jesus to make it right again, for all eternity. It’s a holy ache, because it’s one that Jesus knows intimately. It’s God’s heart, too. I understand now that sharing in Christ’s sufferings includes holding grief’s hand when it enters your life, as it has entered mine.

So what wisdom have I heard? I’m glad I asked. My brain is still a sieve these days. I still have trouble completing sentences. I am very forgetful now, and need continual reminders of things I used to be able to mentally hold. This is one of the reasons I write. I write to remember. I write to process, and I also write to learn. I often read my writings back, and learn from them.

One thing I have learned is what the writer of Isaiah meant when he said Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). Clarissa Moll pointed out that it could also be translated that Jesus was a “familiar friend” with grief. Hmm. Familiar friend. They were close. This means I am in good company, as I stop running away with distractions, take a breath, and begin a true acquaintance with grief. I’m learning that welcoming grief instead of running from her is walking in Jesus’ footsteps. It’s an joining in God’s lament against sin and longing for full restoration. It’s the ache that things aren’t as they should be.

I’ve learned how illiterate I am in lament. The churches I have been part of never taught or modeled how to handle grief, or how Jesus did. Funny how we can talk so much about some things but have blinders on in others. Mine were stripped from me this last year. Once in the pool of grief, it didn’t take long to see how the church shies away from following in Jesus’ footsteps in this regard. We see his sufferings as necessary, dwell on them for Good Friday services, perhaps, or when we talk about sin, but do not follow him to the extent of calling grief our familiar friend. We sing positive songs, pray for positive outcomes, and have little to no vocabulary to lament and grieve. One of the ways we need to grow in Jesus’ likeness. However, God has given me fellow lamenters in my current church, who have been a lifeline in this hurricane.

Other lessons I am learning is what truly matters and what doesn’t. Death brings life into focus, sharply and succinctly. I see how unimportant and insignificant things are, things that used to grab my attention. For example: caring what other people think of me, or my fear of trying new things. I’m rethinking how I parent our children, seeing more gaps in what I believe vs. what I actually do. Instead of wanting to be entertained in my free time, I have a burning desire to be useful. To create instead of consume. Life is so fleeting, so short, a drop in a very large bucket. I want to make my drop count. Whether I like grief or not, she is changing me in ways I’ve asked for. I just didn’t want the lessons to come through her.

You see, I have a confession to make. I studied suffering and God’s reasons for it pretty regularly in my 20s and 30s. It was a disturbing thing to try and hold: if God loves me, why does he allow _________? I read books, underlined verses that mentioned suffering and purpose, listened to sermons. I wanted to know the answer to the all-famous question: WHY??

Thanks to grief, I realize now what was going on in my heart. I figured if I could understand even some of the answer of why, if I studied enough about suffering, then when the big storms of life hit, I would be able to meet them with calm and composure. I would be able to say when my loved one dies, “The LORD gives and the LORD takes away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.” I wanted to be like Job, just without the sackcloth and chapters of lament. I didn’t want to feel as if the bottom was dropping out of life. I didn’t want to be rocked to my core with pain. I thought that would show that I did indeed have a strong faith in God.

How wrong I was. I didn’t understand how much strength and faith it takes to 1. feel your pain to the capacity you are able, and 2. to cry out to God honestly with your anger, questions, doubts and terrible pain. The mark of a strong faith during times of difficulty is lament, not stoicism or emotionless acceptance. God keeps leading me to feel my pain, not avoid it. And when I do, it is there where he meets me, helps me and grows me in ways I could never have experienced had I continued to rely on myself or tried to numb the pain away. Trust in him is revealed through hardship. As I have learned, if you do not trust him, you will not cry out to him.

Yes, grief is my new steady companion, whether I like her or not. Though she’s not my favorite, I do like what she’s doing in me. And I am not alone. There is another steady companion with me, who knows grief well and will walk with me until there is no more pain. His words in Matthew 5:4 hit home this week. I’m blessed because I mourn. While I am incapacitated by my grief to sing, teach or lead in the ways I have in the past, God does not see me as useless or wasteful. No, indeed. I am blessed. Comfort is coming, and it will be all the sweeter for those who are strong enough to break. I am sharing in Jesus’ sufferings. God help me.