The Cost of Loving
Recently, I found a quote that resonated with me. “Grief is not a problem we are supposed to solve. It’s just a natural thing we will go through that needs to be validated and frankly better understood.” The quote is from Meghan Riordan Jarvis, a credentialed grief and trauma therapist. Her words are why I write this blog: to validate, educate, and encourage others who have entered the grief journey, offering hope and comfort to know you are not alone.
After my husband died, I devoured every book I could find. I read six books in the first six months. I ran to the Bible to search out the words that would give me something to hang on to. After being in a state of wordlessness, I began to write as a way to process all the pain that comes with grief.
Our culture is not good with grief. Even the church is lacking in understanding grief and its impact on people. We do a better job preparing for earthquakes and tornados than preparing people to grieve. We can ignore, deny, pretend, and numb ourselves, but grief will find a way to let us know it exists.
We have placed expectations on grief and how it is to be managed. If we see it as a problem to be solved, it will inevitably be seen as something to be fixed. How do you fix what is not fixable? Grief is the outcome of having an attachment to a person you loved. It’s to be expected if we live, love, and form significant relationships. We are wired for relationships.
C. S. Lewis puts it all into perspective in his famous quote, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
It will cost to love. But it’s worth it.