When {GRIEF} takes over

I'm not sure about everybody else, but I've been ready for 2016 to see its way out the door and for 2017 to make her grand debut. 2016 has been a year for the books and I'm ready to leave it in the past. Hunter and I were talking about it the other night and I commented that I've been to more funerals and experienced more deaths (not including the celebrity deaths) this year than I've ever experienced in my life.

 

Between family members passing away due to old age and sickness, to friends that were so suddenly and tragically taken from us, it's been quite a year. This was the year we watched my MIL go through chemo treatments and praise God she's in remission, but it still wasn't easy. 2016 brought miscarriages for friends, heartache for family, struggle in all the many ways.

 

And we grieved.

 

 

 

People grieve in all sorts of ways - I, for one, grieve in such a way that I have to stay busy. I may come off as cold or not caring, but that's my way of dealing with grief. But I feel like that no matter how we each grieve in our own ways, we should allow it to be just that - grieving. I once had a close friend who lost her son to cancer tell me, "You never GET OVER the death of your child, loved one, or whoever it may be. You just learn to cope with the new normal."

 

A new normal.

 

Friends, if you are grieving over losing a loved one please take heart in His love for you. Allow yourself to grieve and to feel all the emotions that God so divinely gave to you. And know that He grieves with you. Did you know that Jesus grieved and wept when John the Baptist was killed for his beliefs? Even Jesus grieved.

 

As we journey into this new year, I want us to take a moment and thank God for bringing us to this point. Even if you have been through hell and back, you're here now and God has you here for a purpose. His wisdom is so much more vast and infinite than ours will ever be thus we cannot fully comprehend why things happen. Why bad stuff happens to good people. My answer to that and the only way that I can rest my hope in that question is the fact that my GOD loves the hell out of me and He can and will use me and my life in whatever way to bring glory to Him.

 

2017, bring it on sister.