Last week, I shared in this Instagram post that I was struggling with grief over my health. I didn’t expect it to resonate so much with those who follow me there, but whenever I asked if they wanted to see more content on grief, I got a resounding yes.
It made me realize that so often we are quick to give others permission to fall apart and to not hold everything together; to be broken. But what about grieving?
Grieving over your health may be a new concept for some. There hasn’t been a physical death, but there is certainly a death of some kind.
I spent years in pursuit of a diagnosis for the mysterious episodes that cause me to collapse, have temporary paralysis and seizures. I thought that one day I would walk into the right doctors office, get the right diagnosis, and find the right cure so I could go back to my healthy active self and leave chronic illness behind.
After almost seven years, that diagnosis came, but it came with the news that there isn’t any cure. And there isn’t any definite treatment. Treatment options works for some and change their lives and for others it doesn’t.
Seven years of hoping to become better. At some point it finally sunk in that apart from the total healing hand of God, there is no cure. As I sat talking to my therapist about this, she asked me if I had let myself grieve.
And I hadn’t.
I thought I needed to be strong for those around. I thought that grieving would make me a “bad Christian”.
She told me that I needed to be able to grieve in order to dream new dreams or even be open to new dreams.
Related: Do You Let Yourself Dream?
Related: You Cannot Heal Your Broken Heart
So here I am on my grieving journey and I honestly thought I was doing pretty good at the whole grieving thing until January 2021.
January 2021 was my 10 year anniversary of becoming sick. During that same month, I had 10 episodes. All while trying to relaunch this ministry. And my heart was tired. My spirit was tired. My body was tired.
I then spent February recovering from January and feeling like I was doing so much less than what I was wanting and hoping to do. And my familiar friend grief showed up.
I wanted to push it aside and say “I don’t have time for this”. But was I was forgetting was that grief can be an invitation into the presence of God if we let it.
So I decided that my grief and I would sit together in the presence of Jesus and be healed together. I realized that parts of my heart couldn’t heal without grief.
I also realized my own misconceptions about grief and worked (and are currently working) to unravel those. So in light of this, I thought I’d share with you 5 things that grief is not.
Related: Cultivating a Thankful Heart When Your Heart is Hurting
5 Things Grief is Not
1. Grief is not selfish.
I can’t tell you how often I could feel grief rising up in my heart and instead of working through it, I would shove it down and ignore it. I felt like to acknowledge it, to allow myself to grieve, to be sad, or to talk about it would be selfish in some way. In some ways, I think I believed that I had to show up everyday as the warrior or chronic illness conqueror instead of allowing myself to show up authentically, even if that meant I was down or was more accepting of my needs and making those known.
2. Grief is not due to a lack of faith.
Please hear this and tuck it away deep into your heart. Your grief does not mean that you have a lack of faith. Instead, grief is an invitation into the presence of God. Over and over through Scripture, we see people of faith going through hard times and bringing their grief before the Father. Job. David. Naomi. Even Jesus.
Each of these people experienced deep sorrow and horrible circumstances. They didn’t hide their grief from God. Instead, they went straight to the throne of God.
3. Grief is not weakness.
Grieving is a normal and inescapable part of the human experience. I actually personally think it takes a great deal of strength to allow yourself to confront the heavy emotions and work through them. Working through grief is healthy.
4. Grief is not bound to a time table.
Grief is not something that can be rushed or scheduled. It not “6 months and you’re done”. It is different for everyone and that is okay.
5. Grief is not linear.
Similar to #4 which says there is no time table, grief is not linear. With that, I mean that it is an ongoing process. One day you might feel fine, the other day you might be overwhelmed with grief. Neither is wrong.
If you are grieving today, whether it is because of your health or for some other reason, I hope you will take the time to sit with your grief at the feet of Jesus and let Him love on you.
If this post resonated with you, please share it with a friend or comment down below your thoughts. I’d love to continue this conversation with you <3
