Seven sets of hands have held this story. As it’s been passed down the line, it’s become a chew toy for teething babes and a holding place for disparate raisins and banana remnants. (Like most of our well-loved books, it’s sticky.)
Do you remember this book? It has words for me for today … and perhaps for you, too. “We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!”
We humans are master pain-avoiders.
There is a time to grieve losses — and loss, ungrieved, doesn’t disappear, it grows in power.
For years we can tell ourselves a narrative, like candy to keep us going — to keep us supporting the deeply tiring work of avoiding the inevitable pain of loss.
Avoiding pain wearies a person to the bone.
Maybe you need to ask yourself today: where am I tired? And how might that tiredness reflect a fierce resistance against a loss He’s waiting for me to admit … so that He can hold me in it?
