Piloting Faith: The thing about grief...

A Word for the Day...

Someone once told me that when someone you love dies, a part of you dies too.

If you've lost someone, you know the truth of those words. The oddity of losing someone you love is that it should kill ALL of you, not just a part. It should steal your breath and take you away too. But you are left, without that critical person in your life, and have to find your way through the pain, the fog, the "it gets better with time" endless march. You keep living, breathing, and are now forced to build a life you didn't want, a life without that person.

I'm only now coming to understand what it means that a part of YOU dies too. It doubles the grief. Not only have you lost the person you loved, but you've lost the person you were when they were alive. You lost the memories that only the two of you shared. You lost the stories that they might remember but you have long forgotten. You've lost the casual assumption of having another day to do this or that. They have died, but so have you.

Grief is hitting all of us these days. Many of us felt shock and grief when we learned about Kobe Bryant and his daughter being killed in the helicopter accident this weekend. We were devastated to hear about Rachel Held Evans passing far too young in 2019. I could name so many more. We share collective grief for people who shape our world and whose life stories became woven into ours by their inspiration.

As we continue this week, I invite you to be aware of the ways grief is showing up in and through you. Are you sad for no particular reason? Are you angry? Do you feel lost? Are you lonely? Grief involves all of these. Honor those feelings in yourself and ask what they might teach you.

What I have learned about grief is that while never God causes us pain, God can use it for good. Gratefully, God can be counted on to bring resurrections out of the crucifying experiences of life. I'm counting on that these days. I hope you can too.

- Rev. Cameron Trimble, author of Piloting Church: Helping Your Congregation Take Flight

Prayer for the Week

God,

In the face of great need,
When the work feels huge
and I feel small,
may I learn of the power of
the mustard seed.
May I trust that my showing up,
Taking root,
Growing branches,
be enough to do
small great things that heal the world.

Amen.