Grieving a Loss

Someone on one of my message boards recently shared this video, and I thought I'd pass it along as something worth watching.  It's a little long, but well worth the time.  Nancy Guthrie lost two children, as infants, and she talked about some things we need to move forward (not move on, but forward) in our grief.  There were many things she said that rang true with me.  She talked about the day sadness came into her life, in a way she certainly didn't go to the hospital expecting, and in a way she never could have imagined.  She described how she felt a big ball of ulcerated pain, and how she needed people to give her time and space to be sad.  She said faith does not make loss hurt less.  Furthermore, there is no time limit on tears.  She told one recently widowed woman, who asked when the tears would stop, "Wasn't your husband worthy of great sorrow?"  She said some people said some things that were hurtful, but what was more hurtful was when they didn't say anything at all.  She recalled keeping a mental list of people who didn't acknowledge her loss, and that it caused resentment and required a focused effort to forgive friends and family, and how she was surprised at who was there for her, and who wasn't.  She talked about how much we long to hear our loved one's name spoken out loud (a huge one for me).  She also discussed how your love for the person you lost is not defined by your ongoing misery.  She mentioned how hard it is to lose the routine of people checking in on you, especially when it was a regular part of a long-term illness (another huge one for me).  Nancy talked about the importance of reaching out in our grief (something I don't do well).  She touched on how healing comes through helping others, especially others who are grieving, and how when we enter into someone's sorrow, it lightens our own.  She talked about how only God can fill up the empty place within us, something with which I continually struggle.  The biggest thing for me was hearing her say, "Love is not defined by a feeling.  Love is an action.  And I loved him well."  I sure did, thank God.