Grief control vs. controlled by grief...

"The best thing you can do is MASTER the chaos in you. You are not thrown in the fire; you ARE the fire. " ~Mama Indigo.  I identify with this so deeply. It is extremely tempting to wallow in grief and drown in memories, especially during the holidays. I refuse to believe in the idea of allowing grief to consume me as a "romantic" notion, "proof" of my love for my husband, or a socially necessary pity session. His word says I'll walk through the waters and not drown; that I will walk through the flames and not be burned. Believe me, I see the waters rising up, I feel the licking of the flames. BUT I am awake, alive, and I choose to counteract the wildfire of this year with a controlled burn or the backfire set to stop total destruction. After all, my God is a consuming fire.

I refuse to let grief own me or defeat me. I have the reality of the loss but also an awareness of the necessity of survival. For me, I know that I know that I know that no amount of crying and self-pity will bring my husband back (or my father, my mother, my sister, my beloved nephew...). There is no point for me to allow myself to feel like I can't go on because I must go on. I choose not to go on half-heartedly but with hope. Things certainly won't ever be the same but I can't change that. The sooner I accept and find the new normal, the less the sense of unreality becomes. After all, this *is* now the life I must live. Accepting redirection makes me a little bit stronger every day. Time is relentlessly marching onward - we never know when our time is up. Therefore, I intend to make the best use of that time, cherish it as best I can instead of wasting it letting sorrow master me. I cry, but I actively seek reasons to laugh. I get choked up by memories, but I fight live with contentment in the now I have been given.

See, I don't see it as ever getting "over" someone as if they or their memory are an obstacle. I see it has moving forward in the new reality, however sucky it may initially seem, because realistically and pragmatically there is no other choice. Everyone is different but I have seen people broken by grief, their future laid to waste by the inability to overcome it. I won't do that, especially when I am completely confident that he is *not* dead but alive with Christ, simply beyond my present ability to reach.

Knowing the reality of where Pat is, that there is no sorrow, he is with the Lord - that is truer comfort than anyone can imagine. Romans 8:18 "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." Pat is there at the big reveal. I choose to fixate on his joy, not my sorrow.