Over the course of this year I have fought against the belief that the only purpose in my grief is to help others when they experience it, but it just made me feel used. Suffering is so much more complex as it wrecks your soul and causes over complicated questions to wash over and doubts are magnified. At the same moment with all of that going on there is also a freedom and understanding that cannot be explained. Over this year I often arrogantly lived in this freedom, as I looked to God and said "do your best, I have nothing else you can take from me!"
Those moments of understanding just how world and fleshly focused we all are is where the freedom came in. There truly is not a better clarity in life than to understand how unimportant MOST the things we focus our daily lives on are. I have always "known" this truth but to understand it and feel its truth in my soul changed me profoundly. I loved my mom as I believe her to have been the only unconditional love I have ever received in my life, losing her caused me to realize the relationships that are important and the ones that are not important. I have spent so much of my life trying to be liked and accepted by others, I am free from worrying about what others think of me or if they want to be my friend or not. Don't waste your time on people who don't give you any of their time in positive encouraging ways.
This "freedom" greatly affected my professional life as well. I spent many months this past year wrestling with God and finding Him at every point even though I wanted to be angry and had wondered if He had deserted me. I had always known I was called to minister to others and bring His message of hope, peace, and joy. When mom got sick those three things seemed to allude me, and the ministry that I did felt like work and effort for the first time in years. It wasn't until a couple of months ago that I finally caught the freedom in knowing that the ONLY hope, peace, and joy on this side of heaven is Jesus. You may be thinking well duh, everyone knows He is the source of those things, but I ask you have you ever experienced Him as your ONLY source of hope, peace, or joy in your life? And dare I say that if you haven't then you may not understand the freeing truth that it is. Every thing that I "work" towards in ministry came into focus through the truth of all those who need the Gospel and His hope, peace, and joy. Work became easier and more focused then ever, I no longer worried as much about what my co-workers thought about what I was doing or how I was doing it. I even told my boss at one point I knew I didn't work for her and with or without my position I would continue doing what God has called me to do.
That is freedom, when you realize and re-motivate your whole life to focus on those truths. The truth that He is peace, hope, and joy. The truth that souls last into eternity and not the physical or material things of this world. The truth that only in the dark is light truly seen. So many people experience loss, and suffering. Suffering causes big philosophical questions, and after my year of struggle (which is not over yet), I see how suffering puts each of us on a two-lane road where it can either drive us closer to God or cause us to step the other direction away from Him. Thankfully on most two-lane roads there are usually only a few opportunities to turn around and head in the opposite direction, so as I may have moved forward slowly I never took the opportunity to turn around. I can surely say I have not only seen and gotten to know God in a new way, but I have also experienced Him in a personal way that I never would have if I hadn't walked through this time of grief. I miss my mom, the way she loved me, the way she and I had a sense of humor that no one else seemed to understand, and the way she listened to me on my good days and my bad days. I am marked in multiple ways by the way this loss has changed and shaped me, I look forward to the day that I see this as God saw it and I pray that it honored Him and my mom!
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