Grieving Again, and Again

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:" Ecclesiastes 3:1

Last night, I cried myself to sleep. I cried because I was grieving something, something deeply personal. This post isn't about what I grieve, but about how important it is to grieve. 

All of us will experience times in our lives when we will grieve, but much of our grieving we do in private and more often than not for private reasons. People expect you to grieve the loss of a loved one. It's "acceptable". Like your grief is looking for acceptance! I've heard, and I'm sure you have too, people say things like, "why are they crying over it still?" or "what is the big deal anyway" or "that was a long time ago, they should be over it by now" or "it's not like she was pregnant enough to get attached". Yeah, I've heard one, actual all of  them and much more. People put conditions on other people's grief, which is why so much of it is done in private. 

Verse 4 of Ecclesiastes 3 says "a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn; and a time to dance;" God knows that we will have times in our lives when we cry ourselves to sleep. Times when the sadness of loss, in whatever form, will overwhelm us. Solomon, the wisest person ever, wept too. He did, even though it's never mentioned (or at least not that I can think of right now). I know he did, because he was human, and we all experience times of grief. Jesus did. He wept. John 11:35

The fresher the moment the deeper we tend to grieve. Our day feels bookended by our grief and more than likely filled with it too. We move through our grief and find moments of sunshine and laughter in our day. Our tears at night may still be there, but we realize the grieving isn't a constant anymore. We get to a point where the grieving only comes on us when a reminder presents itself. The grief is still there, but the level of intensity is different. 

Once again, that kind of grief is experienced, at some point in life, by all of us. We all have lost and will lose people in our lives that bring these times of grief. But we also have the less acceptable times when we grieve. The times that others actually judge our grief, judge us. 

Hannah cried silently to the Lord and Eli misunderstood and thought she was drunk. He didn't understand that what he witnessed was grieving. Others misunderstand, judge, or even ridicule so much of what we grieve because they don't understand. I don't understand everyone's private area of grief. I don't know all the hurt or sadness that brings the tears. I don't know the desire left unfulfilled that causes their mourning. I don't know their loss of what was or what can never be. I've not experienced what they have, so I can't comprehend the level of grieving it brings. Just because I don't understand theirs doesn't mean I don't understand their need to process through the grief and reprocess that grief when it comes along again, because it always does. That is having empathy. (I'm not going to go into it but personal pet peeve is when people say we need to learn empathy. Empathy isn't born from learning about a person's problems. Empathy comes from personal experience and understanding that others suffer too. It's born from loving people regardless of their problems because I know the hurt I feel for mine is similar to the hurt they feel for theirs. We can learn to sympathize but to empathize, we must experience. Okay, that was a long "not going to go into it".)

What you grieve, literally anything that you grieve, needs time to process through. You need the time. You need the Lord, to heal the deep hurt that caused the grief. Regardless of what anyone else thinks, or whether there is a support group for what causes your grief or not, you need your times to weep, your times to mourn. Don't let your own timetable or anyone else's stop you from grieving. Grieving cut short will only lead to bitterness and anger and despair. Grieve. And understand others' need to grieve, even when you don't understand why they grieve. 

Last night was not the last time I will grieve over my pain. I have experienced this grief for years and know that it may never leave me. But I give myself permission to grieve it every time it needs me to.