THE STORY OF GRIEF

The Pain of The Curse & The Redemption of Hope
Written by Bethany Curee, God’s Daughter – Freckled & Free

Grief is not a gentleman —
it barges in.
Its rude.
It waits for no one.
It consumes.
Leaves you breathless.
A necessity to be hated.
But one that inevitably comes in this life.

Grief causes you to frantically
search the memories of your mind.
Scatter them. Scatter them.
Lay them out before you.
Hold them tight.
With clinched hands and squinched eyes you whisper –
“Don’t forget. Don’t forget.”

Grief causes you to over analyze.
To replay what is lost.
To search the past for signs of its impending doom.

Walked alone, grief can feel suffocating.
Too cumbersome for one to bear.

Grief — we’ll simply call her an acquaintance —
I dare not say a friend.
Her bitter sting is cruel.
And she does not leave gracefully.

A trickle in and a trickle out.
Temporary blindness.
Numbness.
A foot in, and out of reality.
The ache of the heart.
The cry of the depth of you.
The reminder that we are human to the core.

Let’s specify — grief does not meet the passed on —
those that are meeting GLORY.
She greets those left in the crumbles of what remains.
What is left in the shadows.
But what she does to those who rejected the truth —
it’s inhospitable to think.

Grief — Earth’s nightmare of emotions that are bound to come.
Tears, screams, anger, confusion and overwhelming loss.
The loss of a person who was dear.
Who impacted your life.
Who gave you a steady hand.
Who made you feel safe.

When anger turns to acceptance.
Pliability comes.
Acceptance — hope.
Hope — peace.
A knowing peace.
That there is a God, a God who knows,
a God who has a plan. A God who is good.

Grief is a painful reminder of the day sin entered the world. When perfection was broken. In that beautiful Garden of Eden where the curse beget the human life and death began.

Yet those of us who carry the HOPE —
Who carry the light — JESUS, precious Jesus.
Grief is temporary.
It does not have a hold on us.
It cannot quench us.
It is simply a process of refining,
of preparing, of looking that curse in the eye,
reminding us of it’s pain here on Earth.

It reminds us that we’re not in eternity yet.
It reminds us of the pain of the cross.
It reminds us that all too soon we will be at heaven’s gates meeting the one who gave it all so that we could have it all.

Grief does NOT win.
It’s a temporary season for a temporary time.
It brings us closer to our HOPE.
Closer to our Savior —
If we choose to let it.

Grief meets grace.
The pearly gates.
The perfect sacrifice and the lamb that took our place.
There, that is where hope lies.
Reaching the promise.
Reunited with love. Our loves.
The perfect love.
Redemption.

And just like that, it is well with my soul.

“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” Psalm 56:8 ESV

“He will shallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.” Isaiah 25:8

Written in memory of my Father, Paul Michael Pendergrass, who went home to glory on Father’s Day, June 16, 2019 at the age of 56. Until we meet again Papa.