Grace to Grieve

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    “A dream of mine had just checked into hospice, and Randy was sensitive enough to know I needed some margin to think.”
                                                                    – Bob Goff, Love Does

    We all grieve and need to grieve. Some of us have lost a dream; some of us have lost a relationship, an identity or a position. We all have had losses, are grieving a loss and will have losses to come. All of these things are a part of life along with the good things too.

    When we experience loss we also experience grief and for some reason we have expectations tied to our grief. We expect it to look a certain way, last a particular period of time. We put pressure on ourselves when we are there “again” and thought we had already gotten over it.

    Why can we not give ourselves the grace to grieve?

    I love the line above from a book I have only looked at in a bookstore. As Goff describes the death of a dream, he talks about his friend who gave him the space and grace to grieve.

   Is a dream of yours dying? How will you give yourself grace? How can you give another grace as they watch a dream die?

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Gratitude and Sadness

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    I am just so sad. West, Texas, a town we regularly drive through is in shock, mourning, grieving, struggling. I look for the helpers as Mr. Rogers is quoted and even the helpers are hurt and maybe even gone. I see more helpers and I am beyond grateful.

    And then there is Boston and the first responders, the investigators, the running community. And then there is the homeless of our city and the many who meet their needs. And then there is the human trafficking everywhere and the abolitionists who fight to free them. And then ...

    I am so grateful for those who respond, serve, protect, work, battle.

    Yet my gratitude and sadness take their turns. How is it possible to be grateful and sad at the same time? This is where we find ourselves - moving back and forth between sadness and gratitude. Is not this pendulum swing a reality? A great tension in life?

    But today I am mostly sad and that is okay.
    Will you give yourself time, space and silence to grieve today?

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

The Death of a Dream

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    A few months ago a good friend of mine used the phrase, “The Death of a Dream”. This phrase was also used in my chaplain training when referring to the loss of a child. Of course, there are many layers of grief in death; these are just the first places I heard of grieving the “death of a dream”.

    We all have dreams, we imagine what something will be like, and then it doesn’t come true. We think we know how something will turn out and it turns out the opposite of what we expected. The men on the road to Emmaus after Jesus death said to Him, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” (Luke 24:21) (Jesus was in fact standing there before them but they could not see him … they could not see the miracle of resurrection … yet.)

    All of us have had hopes, expectations and dreams that did not turn out like we hoped, expected or dreamed. Our dream has died and we grieve. The men on the road to Emmaus were grieving. One truth I gain from them is this: resurrection is sometimes standing right in front of us. God can resurrect anything and sometimes resurrection is standing in front of us and we just cannot see it. We do not have the promise that resurrection will come in our lifetime (although I do wish there was a three day turn around on any death) but we have the promise that Jesus is with us. And maybe, just maybe resurrection is before us we just cannot see it.

    My prayer is this: That God would give us the grace to see resurrection. He was, after all, the one that opened the eyes of the men on the road. That we would grieve well that which we dreamed of that we do not ignore the pain of death. That we would also look up with expectation that Jesus who rose from the dead can also raise our dreams up from the dead. And as He does we would trust His timing and would have eyes open wide enough to see the miracle of resurrection.

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**