Little Lessons from Grieving

Grief is a form of validation,

it says the wound mattered…

Forgiveness is setting a prisoner free

and then discovering the prisoner is you.

-John Eldridge, Wild at Heart

When my mother passed during the darkening days of Advent, grieving began for me lessons I have only begun to understand…

A Simple Prayer

As I was visiting my mother in her final hours, I knew I had embarked on the hardest day of my life so far. Thankfully, a simple and beautiful prayer came to me: “Holy Spirit, help me to be present in this very moment”. I prayed that prayer throughout those days and have reprised it ever since. It would seem suffering is exacerbated by distancing the soul. To be consoled is to be present to receive even grief.

A Different Kind of Strength

In Spanish, we call strength, fuerza. It is the same root where we get our English word fortress from. Alone we are defenseless, but with the Kingdom of Heaven, we join front lines strong enough to face down all things. I am grateful my mother gave me an inheritance to this fortress of eternity. Perhaps that is the greatest gift one can ever give.

A Devotion

In my mother’s numbered days, I began to pray the rosary. Prayer is such a sacred thing where one so small petitions the King of Kings by casting spells upon themselves. A story is a compendium of magic and a character we hope to inhabit. Those little beads somehow keep those Gospel stories with me better than any page ever did. We all have our devotions. There was a time when my pilgrimages became commutes and my rosaries were slabs of glass surfacing unsatisfying stories. Returning to a devotion I can share with generations who have taken their station in the Kingdom of Heaven is one of the most peaceful things I have ever experienced.

A Little Bit of Hope

In Spanish we call hope, espero. It’s the same Latin root as our English word for prosperity. To be prosperous then is to have what we have hoped for. If we had hoped to live forever, we have prospered, because we know the soul is eternal. But if we had hoped to evade death, we will never know prosperity. My mother’s passing helped me see the little nooks and crannies in my own soul that needed hope. I have made peace my mother would say in the days she approached her passing. She will always be a prosperous to me.

A Difference between Comforted and Consoled

Comfort numbs our souls of that nagging truth that we are not of this world. Opposed to the gluttony of fantasies and feeds, Jesus came to console. Which is to consolidate. Make solid. Make whole. He gathers a remnant of the broken hearted and knits them together by the threads of heaven. One must not seek to comfort the way the world comforts but be consoled the way the scared word mends souls.

A Deeper Joy

It may be that God allows those who can feel joy to be broken but not destroyed. A broken vessel pours forth without embargo. Joy was not made to be contained. The best of beings are broken that they may leak light ceaselessly wherever they go. And the only way it would seem to let the light of another into the recesses of one’s self is to become broken that little beams could make beautiful things.

A Family Grieving

A couple of weeks ago my wife’s cousin unexpectedly passed. We are grieving with his wife, their three adolescent boys, and the rest of my wife’s family. One doesn’t get good at grieving and grieving never gets easy but to be present in grief is where one finds a fortress of hope, love and joy.

Thank you for your prayers and we are grateful for each of you who continue to pray.

Until next week,

-Steven