Isaiah 30:15 “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.’”
The dog days of summer are almost over except, of course, for us who reside in the desert. We usually stay hot until October. Here in the desert, fall seems to start on October 31st. Summer is always a time when life slows down. With the warmer weather and kids out of school, you can feel the call of the season trying to put the brakes on our hectic lives. It is a time when many people take a vacation. The dictionary refers to vacation as an act or an instance of vacating something. The one thing that we often can’t vacate is our grief, especially if we are in the early years of our loss. When we lost our daughter in July, 1997, our grief threw us into a storm like no other. We were in such need of someone to help us. We just wanted to talk to someone who could tell us we were not going crazy. As we made phone calls here in the desert, we were told that all the support groups take a break during the summer months. I remember my husband making the comment, “I wish my grief could take a break.”
As I look back at that time, it was a time for me to turn to the Lord alone. I had nowhere else to go and what better place to find myself in. It was just me and the Lord face to face fighting this thing out and coming to terms with what I truly believed. We need to have support from each other and lean on each other during this time of grief, but we also need our alone time to work this out with the Lord. We not only need our time alone with the Lord working and hashing our emotions out, we need a time of being still. We need to vacate this place of grief even if it’s only for a moment. We should not condemn ourselves when we find ourselves laughing or smiling. We as women always seem to find reasons to feel guilty. I pray we can stop feeling guilty for how we grieve especially when we take a moment to enjoy those things that surround us. This time of vacating our grief helps refresh us for the work that lies ahead. The Lord spent many hours away in a time of stillness and prayer. He went into the wilderness alone for forty days where He was tempted and triumphed over Satan. In His quietness and trust He found the strength for the challenges He had to face.
Whether you are early in your grief or you have walked this journey for awhile, I pray you have found a time to vacate your pain, whether it was a moment from your thoughts or weeks away from life’s hustle and bustle. If you have not taken a break to rest, relax, and renew, I pray you will give yourself a guilt free gift. You will find the Lord will refresh you and strengthen you for the seasons that lie ahead.
– Michele
