Y’all, cancer sucks. And frankly, it scares me. Who knows the outcome of my treatments and surgery. Who knows if the cancer will spread. Who knows if the cancer will return.
There is an immense grief that floods me. When I hold my babies, I can’t help but wonder how long I will have that gift. When Jonathan and I spend time together, I can’t help but imagine his life without me.
Then I suffer the very present grief of feeling my body waste away. Touching my bald head. The fatigue that engulfs me down to my bones. The ever present pain of a nuclear war being raged inside me.
Grief wants to break my body and my spirit with a weight too heavy for any one person to carry. Grief wants to squelch out hope. It wants to rip all joy from my hands.
I’m there y’all. I’m walking through the grief. I’m walking the dark, lonely road that C.S. Lewis told us about.
But, I’m here to say, there is grace in the grief.
God doesn’t ask us to ignore our grief. We aren’t to run from it, deny it. We are told to cry out in our grief.
In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. Psalm 18:6
Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you! Psalm 102:1
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! Psalm 130:1
In our grief, we are to cry out. We shouldn’t act like we have our lives put together. In fact, we should do the opposite. We should cry out. Wave our white flag. Beg for help.
But that’s hard. Because, help usually comes in forms we are too proud to accept. It comes in the form of friends who take your kids because you’re too sick to care for them. Or people who drive out of their way just to bring you flowers. Friends who spend their own time, their own money, to care for you. Family who schedules their lives around you.
Asking for help means admitting you are flawed. You aren’t strong enough, capable enough, to do things on your own. And that’s hard.
But inside the grief, when we call out for help, when we let go of our pride, embrace our flaws, there is a flooding of grace.
Grace in our life is a beautiful thing. It looks like forgiving a friend who betrayed your trust, like picking up the slack of a lazy co-worker, or like extending a hand to someone who doesn’t deserve your notice.
Grace looks like seeing your world crumble under the cruel hands of cancer, while those around you help to build it back up. Stronger this time.
Grace looks like facing death with an unwavering assurance that God is bigger than what my little world can realize. And while I trust that I will win this fight, I trust even more that He has already won my battle.
There is grace in the grieving. If you are in the midst of grieving right now, whether it be over a broken heart, jobloss, or a really crappy grade from that crotchety professor, know that there is grace here for you. Grace to fail. Grace to admit you aren’t perfect, you aren’t as Pinterest-y as you wish.
There is so much grace in your grieving. So, let’s be friends and doing this graceful grieving together.
