Grief of all different kinds, can bring anxiety and uneasiness of simply living normal, everyday life. This is not new to me, but it’s something I have been recognizing more in the moment. Being a little over a month in to a whole new life, one that I never saw myself in, I have been dealing with a range of emotions on sometimes an hourly basis. Going from up to down and down to up in a matter of minutes. Feeling anxious over things I never felt anxiety over. Going through grief, you realize you’re just not really you anymore. At least not the you, that you were before.
This has been extremely challenging for me personally. I can assume that many people who go through earth shattering experiences understand these feelings all too well. The feelings of losing yourself. No matter how hard or well you work at navigating grief, there will be moments. Times where you thought you had a grip on the day but then realize it all fell apart. Times where someone will be talking to you and suddenly everything in your mind goes quiet and you missed the whole conversation. And times where a social situation that would have never made you upset before, is now about to make you cry. Holding it together in those moments can be a full-time job.
I have had many of those “moments” in just the last month. And it’s only been a month! It’s important to me to acknowledge them and how they play a role in grief, because they are so very real. Nothing can be great all the time, even outside of grief. We are human, our emotions waver and life can get the best of us some days. This is where my favorite word comes in to play. Grace.
I think we can underestimate how far a little grace can go. I know how easy it is to get annoyed with small details going wrong. I know when the waiter messes up your order and it takes twice as long to get your food, that’s annoying. I know that the person in front of you in the check out line taking 500 years, is so annoying. I know that the guy who cut you off on the road because they stink at driving is so incredibly annoying. But all those things are just briefly annoying. They last for that short time and then they’re over. The annoyance only lasts seconds.
But maybe on the other side of your annoyance as to what is happening there is something bigger lasting beyond those few seconds of your life. Maybe a battle you have no clue about. I wonder about myself when people talk to me and my reply after they’ve spoken for a few minutes is “I’m sorry, what?” How annoying! I checked out for a second and I didn’t even realize it. Or when I had the day all planned out and then all of a sudden it all fell through my fingers, but there were others involved in some of those plans. How annoying. I think of all of this, and I also think how the people I have surrounded myself offer me an unlimited supply of grace. The best gift I have been given through all of this. No loud sighs, no unanswered phone calls, no chatting behind my back at how annoying I am…. Just beautiful grace with a never-ending limit.
It encourages me to then take all that grace I am given and continue giving it to others. But not just people I know are struggling….everyone. There is enough grace in my heart for everyone. So many people are fighting battles daily that the rest of us know nothing about. What a beautiful world it would be that we could offer them something, free to us, that could be worth so much to them. Grace. Let the little things go.. Think of something that you’ve been through where, grace offered, would have been a miracle for you at the time. Then it’s so easy to freely give grace to everyone.
Grace won’t fix our problems. It may not be the way we find joy through our grief. But I believe grace can help us through those many “moments” that we experience through our hardships.
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