The calendar tells us that the season has officially changed.

Activities and routines have shifted, already hinting toward the inevitable. Autumn is here and today it feels like it. The weather man told me last night, as I watched the late night news before bed, a cold front was coming in from Canada. (Sigh)

 

 

 

 

 

I confess that I struggle with this season—a lot. I’m not sure why.

I’ve always attributed it to the fact that fall ushers in winter, and I don’t like winter. Most of my friends LOVE this time of year. They love the crisp cool air and crunch of leaves under foot. Not me. The cool air is certainly a relief, but the sound of leaves crunching under my feet always makes me sad. The changing of seasons is a metaphor for me. Fall is often a season of lament and when winter comes, I just bare it, always looking ahead with longing, waiting on spring to arrive and instigate life and growth. Spring awakens hope which is satisfied fully when summer arrives, bringing bounty and beauty.

So, today the air is definitely cooler, September has almost expired, and life looks very different than it did this time last year. I am different than I was this time last year. And I’m realizing that I do not want to embrace this reluctance toward what is yet to come. I don’t. I really want to savor the moment and not miss anything because of the dread that wants to camp in my heart as I consider what may come.

This whole year has been about surrendering all “what I thought’s.” Some of the “what I thought’s” were buried so deep that I didn’t know they were there until they were challenged by difficult circumstances. The Oncologist told us that this strain of Cancer was a bad one. He went through statistics and outlined a cold, hard reality, which does not line up with “what I thought” was going to be. I always believed that 10 years was a long time, until it became a potential time line of life expectancy. What I thought was that we’d have forever. Now, I know we don’t have forever in a physical sense, but I’ve always been fairly comfortable that “forever” meant someday—but not now. When you place an actual time value on it, everything changes. And with that revelation comes, an unwelcome companion: Grief.

Can I be really honest?

Grief can be an abrasive companion. Grief is heavy and has a way of ripping open wounds and pouring salt into the seeping places. Grief is hard to entertain…
But I am starting to see how she is also necessary and effective in the healing process. Grief sings the song of lament, confronting every thought, relationship, and activity through the eyes of loss—she forces us to be present and real, because really, we don’t have the strength to be anything else anyway. When we allow the process, the process of seeing and feeling, it really is better—not easy, just better. Sometimes though, we don’t.

Sometimes, we choose the way of fear…

I hate fear. I hate everything associated with fear because it is a destructive companion. Fear is no friend. It robs us and beats us down, all with our permission. Here’s the thing, fear may hover around, but it can’t touch you until you agree with it. Agreement with Fear activates a desperate compulsion to take control—manipulation is always a manifestation of anxiety. The world may agree with you and tell you that you are completely justified, but you need to know that once the door to Fear is opened there is no rest, until you close it by cutting away the fear.

Rest…

I have spent a good many years plumbing the depths of the meaning of REST. The single principle that resounds in my soul when I hear the word “rest” is this: rest is not a ceasing of activity. Rest can certainly come when we cease to move, but it is not about stopping the movement. Rest begins with a choice. Rest begins when we choose to Trust God and not the “cold, hard realities” of circumstances (even when they are really stacked against us). Rest starts from the inside and works its way out.

It has taken me a long time to understand this truth. I spent years searching for the best strategic tool to help me carefully order my life so that I could rest. The problem is that no matter how carefully you plan something, life has a way of pulling rank. I have wasted energy being angry and resentful because I entertained fear…fear of death, fear of man, fear of failure, fear, fear, and fear. It just feeds itself and grows exponentially making rest harder and harder to find.

I used to look for rest in a place. Many of us do this. We hold in there until we can sneak away on vacation, far away from life, a time to escape and revive, but there is no getting away, because we take it all with us. A change of scenery doesn’t change anything. No, rest is not a ceasing of activity or an escape. It is the gift of peace when we choose to trust.

The Mercy of grief…

Grief definitely feels like a tsunami. She rolls in with force and power and when she pulls back she strips everything bare. She has a way of completely unsettling everything and turning it all upside down. She is insensitive, rude and heartless in her realistic assessments, but in all of it, she isn’t wrong. I really think that it is her job to reveal.

 

Grief unearths unspoken fear,

which confronts brokenness, weakness and pain.

In that moment, I am faced with a choice:

to trust God or to agree with fear.

 

 

 

 

 

Do you see it?

Do you see the goodness of how in the very hardest of moments, grief unearths fear and confronts the heart?  

What if I embraced the journey with grief instead of fighting her?

What if I began so see her as a gift?

 

 

Grief mercifully reveals the heart so we can see what’s really there (ugly as it may be), and in the middle of it all, God speaks. He really does. I know it feels like he is silent, but He isn’t. The cry of our heart is answered with this simple question: Will you trust me? That’s it! That is always the bottom line.  Courageous trust is an audacious choice, but it is the only way. Choosing to trust God, when grief reveals the heart, slams the door on fear. Trust is the key that open the way to healing and rest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I’m reluctantly learning to make my peace with grief.

And the bravest words I utter to this strange companion are: Thank you. Thank you for helping me to see and feel and find my way. You are a gift—a merciful gift—designed to strip away attitudes of the heart that make me sick.

“God is our refuge and strength,

always ready to help in times of trouble.

So we will not fear when earthquakes come

and the mountains crumble into the sea.”

(Ps 46:1-2)

 

 

The way of trust leads to the place of rest—the dwelling place of the Father. Peace isn’t something to attain, it’s a person, and peace resides in the heart of the one who chooses to trust God.  Be still and know me…this is the invitation to trust.

 

 

 

 

 

Nope, I’m not the same person this year. I can see the change happening around me, but I will embrace it and savor it. Wonder of wonders, the metaphor is shifting for me. Yep, winter is coming, but I see her differently. This barren season isn’t as it seems—it’s not about loss. No, winter is a precious gift of rest and it is in rest that I find healing and peace.