HOLDING ON TO HOPE

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.’  The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”  (Lamentations 3:21-26 NIV)

Holding on to hope is the challenge of all grief and loss experiences. Finding courage or energy to go on day after day requires hope of healing, hope for future. Holding on to hope is not always easy. Some days it requires all of our energy just to maintain our own lives. On other days, we at least want to believe that "for everything there is a purpose," as we try to find the purpose in our own experience. That requires finding ways to make meaning even out of situations that may seem so meaningless. Those are the days we really struggle to find belief in the unseen.

Many people say those days of struggle are when they lean most heavily on their faith, in order to find the inspiration and comfort they need to be able to go on. After all, Scriptures says, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1 NIV)

There are many days, walking through that maze of healing, that require belief in God, hope, and future without seeing any proof of them. Time in prayer, reading His Word, and fellowship with believers can all help in the struggle of holding on.

Holding on to hope requires active participation. It is not a passive process. It requires holding on to faith in the future, at a time when we can barely survive the present. It means clinging to the belief that God is good and will help us when all we can see seems to say that is not true. 

-- From “A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance: Help for the Losses in Life”   

THE SEASONS OF GRIEF

"For everything, there is a season," a familiar verse [in Ecclesiastes] tells us.

Life and death come quickly in nature -- buds swell into green leaves, turn golden, then brown, and drop to the earth. Nature shows us [rebirth] as plants are reborn and flowers, once fresh with life, return to the earth to become nourishment for other plants.
 
Nature shows us seasons of life and death everywhere we look.  But nature seams not to mourn these deaths -- not the flowers, not even the animals. Within the lifecycle is a built-in process of survival as one part of nature nourishes another.
 
But people do mourn and grieve -- and so we alone need a season of grief. In this season, the seeds of rebirth are planted. What varies from person to person is the length of this season, the right time for harvest, and the time when rebirth comes.
 
When the seed of life is implanted in a woman we speak of her pregnancy going "full term." By this we mean that she will carry her unborn child the full term of nine months, without intervention. The season of grief must also be allowed, without intervention, to go to full term.
 
It makes me angry when people say, "Get on with your life, it's time to stop grieving." Nobody can tell you what the season of your grief is. It may be a summer, a winter, a spring, a fall, perhaps another winter -- or another -- or another.
 
Just as the gestation period varies from creature to creature, the natural process of grieving varies from person to person. The harvest of renewed life will come in its own season.
 
-- Ted Menten in “After Goodbye” 

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