Sorrow and Victory

A friend died the week before last.

His funeral was a week ago today. I was far away, and I couldn't go to the funeral, couldn't participate in the communal grief, and that was difficult.

My sister described grief so accurately in an email this week. I'm so thankful that she always tries to meet me where I am, no matter what kind of crazy place that may be:

"Grief is a mess. A necessity. A hold you by your ankles upside down for awhile kinda thing. It kinda messes up the functioning of normal life because it's a response to a great rip in life. There's a space no longer occupied. And the soul hasn't adjusted to it yet." 

I've done a lot of crying. A lot of remembering + praising Jesus for the beautiful life and heart that still lives--lives with Jesus where he belongs, lives at home.

And still there is sadness, sorrow, the deep sort that ambushes you.

Tonight, when grief snuck up on me, I was spraying a pan to make some banana bread. For some reason, a familiar baking pan--one of my mom's old ones--caught me so off guard in the midst of all the unfamiliarity and isolated feeling that goes along with grieving. I burst into tears- and I picked up a pen...

...because somewhere in this torrent of tears, there is something holy. Just as Jesus wept for his friend, so I weep for mine. And just as Jesus' friend lived again, so does mine.

These days my song is sorrow and victory, death and life abundant, tears mixed with the Conqueror's joy.