Grieving Can Be Lonely

My friend lost her husband of 37 years recently.  It feels like an assault to her soul.  Death was not a part of the original plan and something, everything feels completely wrong in her life.  Her husband was the life of the party, everyone’s best friend and the picture of a humble, kind servant.  When he showed up he made everything more fun.  His clever sense of humor was disarming and his determination to see, really see others was steady.  For the last 10 years and more he took her to lunch nearly every day, brought his strong, listening heart, turned it to her and loved her. 

My friend has a serious temperament, is socially shy and hesitant in relationships and now he is gone.  “It was all about him,” is her conclusion to how friends and family felt when they come to visit and now she feels irrelevant, lonely and lost on this new path.  Her losses are deep and far reaching.  Each day reveals yet more to grieve and she wonders when it will get better.  She wonders if it will. 

In Psalm 42, the psalmist grieves and I think of my friend.

My heart is breaking

    as I remember how it used to be:

I walked among the crowds of worshipers,

    leading a great procession to the house of God,

singing for joy and giving thanks

    amid the sound of a great celebration!

5 Why am I discouraged?

    Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God!

    I will praise him again—

    my Savior and 6 my God!

He has put his hope in God and decides to praise him again.  This seems like a good move.  His friends might feel relieved and assume things will be looking up.  Yet, this is not what happens. 

Now I am deeply discouraged,

    but I will remember you—

even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan,

    from the land of Mount Mizar.

7 I hear the tumult of the raging seas

    as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.

8 But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,

    and through each night I sing his songs,

    praying to God who gives me life.

He is honest. He put his hope in God and yet his discouragement deepened, the seas rage and tides sweep over him.  Rather than being an event with a beginning and end, his discouragement and sadness ebbs and flows.  From this place of broken dependence on the God he looks to for hope, he experiences his unfailing love, can sing and find relationship with a God who gives his aching heart life.   And still there is more to grieve. 

9 “O God my rock,” I cry,

    “Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I wander around in grief,

    oppressed by my enemies?”

10 Their taunts break my bones.

    They scoff, “Where is this God of yours?”

11 Why am I discouraged?

    Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God!

    I will praise him again—

    my Savior and my God!

Each day and again highlight the unpredictable and intricate rhythms of the human heart.  Discouragement, grief, pain is not simple and never easy.  The questions in this passage repeat and reveal the ongoing nature of our need.   His grief continues.  His hope is in God.  He feels alone.  He praises the God who loves him again.  His discouragement deepens and he remembers who God is.  He wanders around, finds life in God, wonders why and his heart breaks.  Again he hopes in God.  I see no inclined plane but rather a real human experiencing life in a fallen world.

Her husbands death will always feel inherently wrong, out of place.  It often gets worse before it gets better.  And we don’t know when better will come.   Thankfully, in the midst there is more.  Death is not the end of the story and grief can be met by hope.  But, my friend wonders how long her friends will stick by as she wanders around in the desert of grief.  Will they join her when they can?  Will they come back when she is angry and all she can do is question? 

My prayer for my friend is that there will be those who will find her in the desert and walk by her side.  I pray she will know their comforting (at times awkward?), patient presence because they know the journey ebbs and flows.  The psalmist says it well.  Grief and sadness are intertwined with the love, life and hope He wants for us.  We don’t know the exact path or timing.  I do know he doesn’t want us to walk it alone.