The Rollercoaster of Grief

I hate this roller coaster of grief.  Up and down, twists and turns, everyday a new ride I didn’t even know I jumped in line for.  When will it stop?  When will this theme park close and let me just breathe?

My heart feels like a puzzle that can delicately be placed together but than shattered if not handled with care.

Moments shift and change with each trigger that comes my way.  Triggers of feelings I want to go away.  Sadness of what’s been lost.  Anger that I can’t go back.  Hurt that I trusted.  Joy of what I still have.  Love for the life ahead.  Disappointed at the ‘what if’s’ I will never get to see played out.  And the loneliness of feeling like no one understands.

Grief sucks!  Just plain and simple.  It does what it wants when it wants and you feel like you have to just ride the emotional wave you don’t have time for.  I don’t have time for grief.  I want joy.  I want laughter, I want life and life abundantly.  Not the life this grief is taking from me. I want a smile, a smile that lasts an entire week because my heart feels so full.

Get out of my life grief!

But it’s here.  Grief is the shadow that my fairy tale heart wants to ask Peter Pan how I can scrub it off.  I don’t want it any longer.  I am exhausted of its control on my life.  There has to be more when the fairy tales don’t give us the real life answers we need.  I need to have hope that there is more to come.  I need to have hope that this looming grief shadow can turn into the reminder that the sun must be shining somewhere even if it’s hard to see right now.

Hope is all that is left.  Hope is all I have to hold on to.  Hope is all I have to look to.  Hope is the only anchor keeping me afloat on an ocean with torrential weather.  Hope is all I have left.

And this, this spot right here that I don’t want to be in, this is right where God wants me.

With nothing left but the dismay this world offers and the hope His arms can bring into my life.  It is Him.  God is the stronghold in my sorrow.  God is the rock on which I stand when this tightrope begins to shake.  God is my Hope in a world where I pout and stomp my feet when I want everything to go back to the way it was.  God is my only Hope when I miss the friends I once had, the family I wish I could have grown up in, and the heart I wish had never been broken.  God is my Hope.  I am writing this out because I forget it too quickly.  I get stuck in the first couple paragraphs, forgetful of hope in the midst of chaos, forgetful of the existence of light after the power goes out in my heart, forgetful that there is a God that is bigger than my worst day, bigger than a single day, and bigger than the emotions that point me in a negative direction.

I need you to move God!  No more timid requests, no more shy, “please, if you don’t mind God”.  Just bold proclamations that He is a God bigger than the roller coaster I am on.

God, I know you will heal.  I claim it!

God, I know you will restore.  I claim it!

God, I know you will redeem.  I claim it!

God, I know you have a plan.  I claim it!

God, I know you are moving in this very moment in ways I cannot even see.  I claim it!

God, I know you are God and I am not, and I trust you even though I am scared to let go of the control in my life.  I claim it!

God, take my hand, keep me steady as my body jumbles through the ping pong match of grief cycling through anger, sadness, spouts of joy, denial, and just wanting to run away from it all.  I claim your goodness, and now Lord, I am asking you to claim me!

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