I said in a post I wouldn't write many more posts about grief, but I must have lied. Or maybe I anticipated. There's that.
Crawling out of a grave sounds like a good thing. Overall, I think it is. But you don't know what you're crawling toward. And that darkness — it follows you.
Something happens when you try and get out of a grave. It's the stuff of horror movies, actually. Things have wrapped around you, grown over you, tangled in your hair and limbs.
It's a terrifying endeavor.
You can get out, but the struggle reaches a point you question whether you actually want to get out, or whether it's safer and warmer, and easier just to give up. But it's so horribly dark.
Last night I shared with a friend a scripture that I carried with me for years after Jerry died. It was the only thing that seemed to anchor me. On my worst days I'd find that scripture and read it over and over. Lamentations 3:21-24. You'll probably be familiar with it. Hopeful, if not helpful. It is a verse of comfort in a dark place.
Later, when I was going to bed, I remembered something. I used to read the whole chapter. I had a vague idea of the contents. Jeremiah is in a dungeon. Last night I tried to read it again.
It is not a chapter to read in dark places. It is a chapter to tell you someone else has been in that place. That someone else probably understands. Once you read it, when you read it, and you will, you may relive the darkest moments in your life. But for a minute you won't be alone there.
I cried all the way through that chapter last night. And many nights before. I think that will happen every time I read it in the future. Because once you've been in dark places, it follows you. You'll always wear the marks of the battle to crawl out and it will always follow you.
That's when you read Lamentations 3.
In the last few weeks, I attempted to step out of the dark. The light was blinding. And the pain of crawling out is excruciating. There is a point where I had to decide to leave parts of myself there, in that box. My God, it hurts. Never would I have imagined how painful it is to leave a grave, not once but twice.
The first thing you notice is you can't breathe. You're chest is tight. You're throat closes, and your nose gets stopped up. Then things start to hurt. First it's just that tight chest but then you have pain across your back and neck. Vision is a challenge. You head hurts.
It's a kind of dying.
It is the Lord's mercies ... it doesn't feel merciful. It is painful. But you keep crawling.
We are not consumed. But it feels as if you are. The box has devoured you. It isn't locked but it saps all your strength. It is easier to just rest.
But it isn't rest. It's death.
I'm not writing this to make you feel better or to make me feel better. I'm writing it to tell you that staying there is death. Crawling out feels like death. They're not the same.
I went to bed in tears. Again.
Don't assume there is anything to crawl toward. I woke up this morning to a kind of goodbye text. I cried again.
It's sun up. I can't see. But I know it's up there.
I'll just hope in Him.
