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Grief is in two parts: The first is loss, the second is the remaking of life.
I found that quote in a Facebook group for people dealing with grief: “Grief is in two parts: The first is loss, the second is the remaking of life.”
I’ve found this to be so true.
I fully expected the first part, “loss.” Mourning the person who is no longer a part of your life when they previously played such a central role in your life.
But the second part, the “remaking of life.” That creeps up on you at various moments, often in decisions you simply can’t put off — where will our son go to school? Who will be an emergency contact? What do I do about our house, our car, our taxes? But then you also reach certain milestones — “OK, it’s been a year” — and you think you surely must be ready for other things, too. But then you start to feel your way out of this dark cave that you’ve been in for so long, and you realize there are unexpected rocks in the way, cliffs that you didn’t anticipate, walls to scale that you don’t have the tools for. And all the while, you’ve got a resilient teenager looking at you, wondering how and when you’re going to lead both of you out of this mess.
I remind myself of Psalm 23 — “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me…”
I remind myself that I’m not truly alone, in spite of what I feel, in spite of what I see as my current circumstances.
I remind myself of a verse I learned as a child, and is still true today: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light 💡 to my path” (Psalm 119:105).
This one really resonates with me during this dark season of winter — I have become fascinated with light and making sure I always have something that will light up my way, whether it’s a flashlight 🔦, a headlamp, or a hat with a light 💡 built into it. (My recent Amazon purchases 📦 would demonstrate this.)
I never want to be without that light 💡 as I navigate my way through the darkness. It helps me get safely to my destination, wherever the path leads.
So I try to remind myself: I always have the light 💡 with me that I need. “The light 💡 shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).
Let the light 💡 do its job of illuminating and pushing back the darkness, and then follow where it leads.
