A Journey Through Grief

A Journey Through Grief

A year ago…

Entered in a black month

When the talons of darkness gripped round my heart

My heart struggling to beat,

Large claws priced through flesh and arteries,

Blood flowed.

I lived as though I were dead,

Inhabiting my body but barley alive.

I held on by a trickle of blood and a faint pulse,

When I prayed for God to save me

Unexpectedly, and once again,

He used a child.

When words and counseling failed.

Giggles, cries and diaper changes

Sustained me.

Before the blue eyes of innocence

I found reason to live one more day.

For the small wonder crawling about me

I did not surrender my heart to claws of destruction

Or give up hope to the lake of forgotten dreams.

There in the smile of one who knew nothing of my struggle?

I found a voice calling for me to wake from my sorrow.

As the waters rolled over me and life happened to me

I reached for one more day and slowly life stopped happening to me.

I began to happen to life.

I took one step after another step,

One shower after another,

One trip to the grocery store after another.

In plugging on, the sorrow lessened and life came back to me.

Through tears and death and more tears

I found the pain lesson…

Once more, I found life.

Two years later…

Memories still sting

One month, several moments,

Choices strung together

Still burn with shame and regret.

I remember the days after

How I struggled to wake, to shower, to brush my teeth.

Every moment of life, every breath filled itself with shame,

With Pain.

I thought, surely this will end me.

I will not recover.

A corpse walking among the living is the most I will ever be.

Sin separated me from God.

The crime against me

Shamed me from God.

The mirror showed me the reflection of devastation.

I was undone.

I don’t know how but I prayed for forgiveness.

I don’t know how but I forgave.

Today, I remember.

I feel the pain.

The shame is still near.

But now there is something else.

There is hope.

The God of the universe

Touches the wounded devastated life

He reaches through stone and ashes

He breaths on rotting flesh and life returns.

I have seen him raise the dead.

Because I was dead, I was dead.

I still had a pulse but my soul had no life, no hope,

No joy.

I stared off into space and saw nothing.

Looking to the future, I beheld blackness.

But God did not,

He saw life, he saw joy,

He, past my sin and shame,

He saw past violence and assault.

He saw me and He brought me back to life.

Three years ago...

I was gone

Life was over.

Now, life is full.

God is real.

Joy is real.

by ELL