Re-Starting: Thawing the Grief-Chilled Heart

Photo by Viktor Jakovlev on Unsplash

I can feel the sun’s warm rays settling into my shoulders and offsetting the cool water lapping gently up against my legs.  There’s something eerie about the formless and muffled chatter that surrounds me.  I know that hundreds of other swimmers are in the wave pool, yet I am alone.  I stare at the white wall with its painted waves, all perfectly uniform.  Several feet from the wall, there is a rope past which no one is permitted to wander.  A shiver bolts down my spine as my imagination conjurs impressions of fins, then of opaque and endless depths.  What lurks beneath the surface?  It’s still - too still.  My mind snaps back to my body just as the horn sounds, and as I turn, I bump into a black inner tube.  I’ve drifted too far. 

I see the water as it builds, but I can’t move fast enough.  No matter which way I turn, the path is blocked with rubber and limbs.  The water pulls at me and soon, I am engulfed in chaotic silence and darkness.  I scramble desperately to reach the light that had kissed my skin just moments ago, but my reward is only a fraction of a breath before the weight of another wave forces me under again.  With each blow, the struggle gets more difficult, my energy wanes, and still the next wave exceeds the ferocity of the last.  Eventually, I grow numb, and an icy stillness trickles down my veins as I stop flailing.  I wonder if anyone sees, or if I will simply disappear. 

We all face this reality at different times and in different ways. The constant grief arising from one devastating circumstance after another threatens to wring out every ounce of hope and life we have left.  We become empty shells of who we once were, drained by doubt, anxiety, fear, shock, and anger.  Life looks different.  People look different.  Jaded and cynical, we can find ourselves trapped in a cycle of “bickering, bitterness, and bereavement” (as Pastor Scott Mathis described in his message titled "Of Life Cycles and Choices" a few Sundays back) in our relationship with God and with others.  No one wants to feel that way or live that way, but sometimes it feels like life really hasn’t given us a choice.  We get stuck.

Before I get into this next part, I need you to know something.  When I first started writing this, I couldn’t get past the first two paragraphs.  My brain and heart were frozen.  I had no more answers.  I had no explanations or wisdom.  I had no Christian bandaids big enough to stop the bleeding.  If that’s where you are, know that you aren’t alone.  Pain and suffering are part of this life, and God is gracious in allowing us to grieve, hurt, and wrestle through it all.  We don’t have to pretend that everything is okay and that we understand everything perfectly.  When Job was stripped of nearly everything he had, the Bible says that his friends sat with him in silence for a full week because his deep pain was so visibly evident (Job 2:13).  In such moments of raw pain, many of us are not even able to process words of explanation or hope, no matter how truthful they might be - and that’s okay.  God has given us the process of grieving for a reason.  We need time to gain our bearings before we can even start to think about the “why,” the “what’s next,” and the “where is God in this?”

However, what happens when the room stops spinning, we regain our mental faculties, and we begin to have the desire to recover, but we still feel trapped and pinned down by our circumstances?  Where is the way out - the way to rise above it all - that God has provided?  How can we move on beyond the paralyzing stages of bitterness, bickering, and bereavement to rebuilding our faith and relationships?   How do we get un-stuck?  I was mulling over Pastor Scott’s answer to these questions one night before youth group while Jon was working on getting the computer and the projector to reconcile their differences, and a simple analogy dawned on me: what is the first step I take when my computer freezes?  I restart-it.

In Revelation 2, Jesus addresses the church in Ephesus.  This church was persevering and pressing on in doing many good things, but they had grown cold - they had left their first love.  In verse 5, Jesus explains to them the way to revive their hearts: “Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first....”  This is the passage that a dear friend chose for my bridal shower devotional, and it has lingered in my mind ever since.  When I sense that my heart, my marriage, or my spiritual walk growing cold - chilled by bitterness and bereavement - I know that this is the remedy Jesus has provided.  I must “re-start.”  I have to remember the time when my heart was still soft and choose to do the things I did at that time. 

Our relationship with God impacts all other relationships that we have.  If we aren’t right with God, then all our other relationships are affected.  If we find ourselves stuck, then we must first apply the “re-start” principle to this area.    We must return to the basics of our faith and do the things we did when we first believed.  Some examples that God has brought to mind are:

• Recognizing God for who He is and worshipping Him (My mind is completely blown by the fact that Job’s first response to his incredible loss was to worship God - see Job 1:20)

• Seeing myself as I am - a forgiven sinner bought at a steep price

• Freely choosing to extend the forgiveness and grace to others that God has shown to me

• Trusting God with all my heart and obeying His Spirit when He leads

• Resting in God’s love

• Seeking Him out daily

• Talking to others about Him and what He has done

Like most faith-related principles, “re-starting” is a process that must be adhered to consistently over time.  It does not erase our circumstances or provide instant relief from our grief.  Rather, it is like climbing a rope out of a deep hole in the ground.  “Re-starting” requires intentional effort, and it likely won’t be easy.  However, as we choose in each moment to replace the old with the new, as we seek to do the things we did at first, and as we choose to keep our eyes upward instead of inward, we will eventually find that healing has taken place and we can once again grow and thrive.  We will reach the surface, and we will be stronger than we were before, not because of anything in and of ourselves, but because we will see clearly again that God is faithful even in the muck and the waves.