Sharing her picture of mountain climbing with the moms sitting in front of her, she compared the physical mountain hike with the emotional and spiritual journey we embark on when our child’s life is cut short, and we too must walk forward, bent and broken with our loss, desperate to find answers for our tomorrows and for the intensity of pain and exhaustion that is ours. The moms in front of Michele understood. In our grief, we too each carry a backpack, and everything in our backpacks makes it heavier. The greatest heaviness is the weight of our child’s absence from our lives – a weight that bears down on us emotionally, physically, relationally, cognitively, and even spiritually. Our lives and our personal perspective can be totally changed. Although not always readily understood, grief is godly in the love we have given and still give, and in its potential to bring us in utter dependence to God.
Some things in our backpack of grief involve choices we may go to, but some of those choices do not move us forward in healthy, godly ways. Things like isolation, self-medicating, choosing anger over forgiveness, holding on to regrets. In other things, we have little or no choice. They are simply facts that illustrate the reality of loss, facts that are often normal with loss, or facts that sometimes complicate our loss – even though God doesn't want us to be consumed by them or stuck in our journeys because of them.
But, whatever the heaviness, God longs for us to give Him the heaviness, place it in His hands, and allow Him to lighten the burden through His grace, love, and hope. In Psalm 121, the psalmist looked up, acknowledged his help comes from God, and chose to count on God’s help. We can do the same. And in the reality of our journey of grief, we may well find ourselves going to our God over and over and over, each time choosing Him and His help, realizing I cannot do this journey alone, but God can help me, and I want to give Him the heaviness, over and over and over, so I can know He holds my hand – He even carries me – and lightens my backpack as WE walk forward together.
(Related Bible reading: Psalm 121:1,2)