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I know it’s been forever, I’m sorry. I wish you knew how many times I’ve sat down
at my computer and written something, only to give up three hours later. Writer’s block is real. In order to fight back, I have declared a
pajama day. I’m sitting in bed with my
computer determined to finish a letter.
My phone is beside me and with it, I’m texting family members asking for
things: tea, tissues, lunch, you name it.
My goal is to see if I can stay
here the entire day. My family is
sympathetic because I am on my second cold this month and I’m entirely
pathetic. My head is aching, my eyes are
watering and my nose is running. I may
or may not have a fever, my liver needs detoxification and after running
through the field of self-diagnosis, I have decided I am deficient in several
vitamins and or key minerals.
Are you convinced?
Truth?
I’ve been battling loss.
Not the cataclysmic kind that overwhelms your front door and leaves you
broken and cold, I haven’t been there recently for which I am thankful. No, this is the kind of loss that peers
around corners and drags your attention downward. Just when you manage to place your eyes on
the road ahead, it calls your name and you are left talking to yourself, trying
to pray the blues away with half formed sentences and thoughts you can’t
resolve. At those moments, it seems my
life has dissolved into christianese vomit, as I try to pray/rebuke/rejoice/
myself into a better headspace. It’s
tiring.
I felt I had gained equilibrium after a rough January,
until I got a text from my girlfriend saying her cat was allergic to
kangaroo. Yep. Kangaroo.
Go figure. Her cat has been sick
for ages, so in a desperate attempt to figure out what was wrong with the
little duffer they got him allergy tested.
Turns out, for vast sums of money you can learn not to let your cat gnaw
on the extremities of any marsupial from the family Macropodidae.
It was about then I decided the world was getting
weird. No wait! That’s not quite true. It was the trip to the beach that cinched
it. When the sun peaks out of the
Seattle clouds, all the sensible folk head outdoors. This afternoon found us walking on the beach
when my husband noticed something strange.
“Look at the people walking by,” he whispered. “They are all looking at their phones.” “No they are not.” I whispered back and set
to observing the oncoming pedestrian hordes.
Darn if it my guy wasn’t correct.
Almost everyone walking toward us, with the exception of the over 60’s
set, were holding their phones out staring at them rather than the people they
were with. It was odd. Eavesdropping lead us to conclude people were
busy catching monsters in their phones as they strolled the sea side.
If that last sentence didn’t strike you as odd, you might as
well stop reading.
Loss is a bit of a monster.
It takes a swipe at your psyche and leaves you defeated, missing
something you formerly enjoyed. It’s
hard to fight too, because talking it over with someone doesn’t guarantee it
won’t come back and hurt you again. Just
when you manage to wrestle the beast into submission, it hits you from another
direction.
In truth, sometimes when we are experiencing loss we need to
stop fighting, what is really need is comfort.
Monster: an imaginary creature that is typically large,
ugly, and frightening
Comfort: the easing or alleviation of a person's feelings of
grief or distress
It’s the application of appropriate comfort that’s the
tricky part. In order to catch a monster
you need to be able to describe the critter.
This is most effective when done with another person. Though a bowl of ice cream might distract you
from a monster for a season, no amount of brain freeze can keep them away
forever. It’s hard to confess you are
struggling but it is even harder to struggle alone.
Yet struggle alone we do.
The difficulty is we are more likely to engage in distraction than
seeking comfort. When faced with the
death of a beautiful family friend, I binged watched an entire season of
Grantchester before I faced my grief and wrote the family a letter of
condolence. I sobbed my way through the
writing, sparing no expense on time as I struggled to find the words that would
honour such a wonderful soul. By the
time I had finished, death was not the horrid specter that smashed into the
pillars of childhood memory; it was the means by which a beloved saint got to
go home. The monster of loss was
transformed as comfort was applied.
My dear friend, are you fighting with monsters today? Are there thoughts in your head that are
making you cower? Are you feeling the
effects of loss and need some comfort? Blessedly,
we have a God who is committed to comforting broken hearts.
All praise to God,
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source
of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort
others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort
God has given us. 2 Cor 1:3–4
The pain of loss is real; don’t let it grow in the dark of
secrecy. Might I encourage you to fight
a monster by phoning a friend? Break out a journal, write a letter, make a
connection and describe your battle.
Allow someone to come alongside your heart and do the little they can. Get into scripture, read promises and the
names of God and see if that doesn’t help turn the tide.
Loss washes up on every shore at some point but please don’t
leave the beach, stay and invite a friend.
I’m praying for you this week,
xoxKaren
P.S. thank you Nicole for the photo, weirdowithacamera.blogspot.com 
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