Good Mourning
Good mourning friends. How can I type those words? How can mourning be good? Could this be an auto-correct that I failed to catch? How can two words that seem so contradictory of each other be used together? I mean them just as I wrote them, Good Mourning. I will explain how I came to this realization through a recent experience.
I attended a women’s retreat recently. First, I must say, if you have not had the opportunity to leave your day-to-day and participate in a retreat, I urge to to do it! The transformation can be epic!
Transformation is where my story continues. While tucked away on a mountain experiencing the beautiful amenities (HEATED FLOORS!) of Lost Canyon Camp Ground, just outside of Williams Arizona, the Lord worked so beautifully on my broken heart. The weeks leading up to retreat were some of the worst I had experienced during this grief journey. I felt powerless, broken, unworthy, depleted, depressed and anxious. I felt like a failure to my husband and to myself. The darkness of grief was enveloping me and was becoming darker by the second. I felt far from God and far from the hope I once held so tightly. I found myself finding ways to distract myself from the searing pain. I frantically searched for anything to take my mind as far from my reality as possible. I found myself trapped in whirl of social media, video games (candy crush amiright!?), art project, after art project, learning new instruments, anything that would cloud my mind with chatter so I didn't have to face the fact that my child, my firstborn, the love of my life, was dead. I've heard it said, "if the devil can't make you sin, he will make you busy." Oh, how he did. I found myself obsessing over the next distraction. I wanted so badly to get OVER the pain, I lost sight of the fact that I had to go through it. As the days drew closer to retreat I become increasingly obsessed with distraction. I told myself I was healing. I had researched grief and traumatic loss so intensely. I learned the neuro-pathways that are affected by trauma are the same neuro-pathways that produce creativity. I told myself I was repairing my brain. Oh how far from the truth I was.
The night before retreat I prayed, HARD. I laid my soul out to the God I knew was there, but felt so unworthy of hearing. I told him about my pain and fear of feeling it. I explained just how tired I was. I begged him for relief. I went to bed that night with a word on my heart, REFRESH. I knew at that moment, Jesus was going to refresh my soul.
Friends, the retreat not only refreshed me, but transformed my mind. Jesus came to me through images, words, people and prayer. He showed me intimate details of my life and the purpose behind every experience, easy and hard. He cried with me about the loss of my son and the trauma it caused my family. He whispered his love song to my heart and healed me on the inside. He told me he was proud of me and called me daughter. He explained my purpose and gave me confidence to own my role in his kingdom. He validated my brokenness and encouraged me that "broken" wasn't the end. Above all, he LOVED me.
Guys, I come to you today to say GOOD MOURNING. I want to show the world that good can and will come from pain. I heard a beautiful woman say, "Hard is not the opposite of good." There CAN be good IN the hard. We must choose to find the good through the hard.