Grief in summer

I was speaking with my dear friend Angela this week, and talking about how while on one hand our lives can make us want to shout from the mountain tops and dance, there are days where we want to hide in the dark, quiet and alone, just listening to our breath, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the next drama won't see us, or will wash right over us, giving a gentle reprieve.

But the longer you hide the more numb you feel, and the stranger the world seems when you eventually emerge. So I'm emerging. Well sort of. Still not quite ready for both feet. But here's my toe in the waters of blogging and life.

We just had a sermon series at church about seasons of faith and life, one sunday for each season, and with all our travelling and busyness we missed the week on 'winter' which was the one that felt the closest to how I feel right now, the season I'm in. We are full of grief and pain and sadness right now. We are in winter.

So I didn't want to go on Sunday. I didn't want to be around happy church people. I didn't want to be asked how I was doing, I didn't want to cry. I didn't want to talk about the summer of my faith.

After hiding in the dark, the sun is so bright it hurts your eyes, and you feel like somehow the dinginess of the darkness is still clinging to you too, and you are exposed.

But I did go. And I did cry. Because I know that even though grief and pain and loss are real, and summer feels a world away, it's still inevitable. Whether it's this world or the next, summer is inevitable. That season of taking a big deep warm breath of fresh air and life, and knowing that it will never be taken away again; that season is coming. It might be a world away right now, today, but it's on its way.

Trevor talked about how when we are in bad times, the temptation is to look behind us, at the good times, and yearn, nostalgically, for what is past and who is lost and who we are not anymore. So much so we can get ourselves stuck looking backwards. But God taught Israel that when we look back and see those good things in our past, we should be grateful, yes, and miss it, sure, but that it should remind us of just how much more there is still to be given, and all that is inevitably yet to come. Good things should be Ebenezers, markers of God's goodness, to keep us moving forward, not taunting reminders of all that we've lost.

I have a lot of people to thank from the last month or so. Friends and family who have listened and cried, and prayed, and hugged, thank you for walking with us. You know who you are. We are truly blessed.

I know I'm a huge nerd for what I am about to say, but I've been listening to a lot of Sinatra lately, and the song 'The Best Is Yet to Come' I know that Sinatra is the king of the lounge, but my nerdy Star-trek loving self still loves this version the best............

Favourite line? You think you've seen the sun? You ain't seen nothing yet!