Waves of Grief

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This past Sunday, June 27th, was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Day.

When I saw this on my calendar, I was struck by the timing of it.  Painful memories from my childhood have recently resurfaced. Wounds that weren’t healed before are demanding attention through sleepless nights, crying jags, sad dreams, anger, and a lack of motivation.  A gray cloud hangs over me.  It’s time to let another layer be healed. 

It feels like my heart is breaking all over again. Things that happened when I was a child are happening again now, and I am re-living the deep anguish that I didn’t know how to process as a child.   As an adult, although I know better how to process the pain now, I resist because I am terrified of being trapped in the darkness again.

PTSD is a painful emotional health condition that can develop after a traumatic experience.  It can bring with it depression, loss of motivation, anxiety, anger, irritability, worry, sleeplessness, flashbacks, recurring and disruptive thoughts of the trauma, nightmares, and avoidance of similar situations or of similar people who were involved.

These traumatic events can run the gamut from a one-time experience of being publicly humiliated to abandonment, surviving recurring violence, witnessing strife, experiencing natural disaster, chronic illness, poverty, death of a loved one, death of a relationship, a car accident, or engaging in military war.

The experience can range from guilt, bitterness, rage, shame and grief to hatred and a lack of emotion altogether.

People who have experienced trauma have been through great loss…loss of a sense of safety and security, loss of innocence, of wholeness, loss of family, loss of peace and joy, loss of trust in others and yourself.

This is my tribute to those who have endured PTSD and maybe continue to endure the haunting effects of horrible pain and torment:

For anyone who has loved and lost

For those who have experienced soul-wrenching emptiness

Wave after wave of grief that just won’t relent

They knock you down

Steal your breath

Drag you under

Churning you beneath its drowning waters

To those who are grieving,

Who find yourselves lost on those savage seas,

the Lord says to you:

“I made the sand a boundary for the sea,

An everlasting barrier it cannot cross.

The waves may roll, but they cannot prevail;

They may roar, but they cannot cross it.”

~Jeremiah 5:22

Soon after my counselor told me that grief comes in waves, and I stood there—wide-eyed with terror—contemplating the swells before me, holding my breath, the Lord showed me His Words from Jeremiah.  His timing is ever perfect.

Grief comes in waves: big, looming, seemingly uncontrollable.  They feel overwhelming, but…God sets a boundary.  They will not overwhelm you.  In His wisdom, He knows the emotions must be acknowledged, can’t be ignored lest they grow bigger as a preying monster waiting to pounce at any moment, blindsiding you, manifesting itself in an outburst or breakdown.  The anguish must be faced to be conquered, so He does not stave it completely, but He will not let it overtake you.

Those waves may come, one after another, but God places a limit, a boundary on those waves, on the grief that threatens to engulf us.  We may feel terrified of experiencing the sorrow or even the anger, but He won’t let it drown us. 

God has placed a boundary even on those waves; even as they may roll, they cannot prevail.  The waves of grief and rage may roar; they toss and crash, but they cannot cross the solid boundary that He has placed upon them.  They will not overtake us.  We can let them come because You , God, are protecting us.  You have put a limit on how close they can get. 

Jesus comes to us, reaching His hand out, beckoning us gently to step onto the waves,

showing us that we can conquer their force.  They will not drown us. He takes us by the hand, washes us clean in the very same waters, and shows us how to tame those waves until we can dance upon them together. 

The Lord says to us, “Fear not.”

“When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you,

And when you pass through the rivers,

They will not sweep over you.”

~Isaiah 43:2

Thank You, Lord.  I want to just run, hide away from the emotions that loom over me.  I want to smokescreen and distract myself and not look at the waves at all, but they will only keep coming even as I pretend they’re not there, so help me.  I will brave the waves of grief as long as You are with me.  Please hold my hand now.  I need you.

To those who are in the midst of these waves, reach out.  Jesus is reaching out to you; He also reaches out to you through people…counselors, friends, family, pastors, people who share His love.  God wants to heal and free you, and He can—if you take His hand.  My prayer is that you would reach out and brave the waves together. 

Take this as the Lord’s song to you…