Simple Is Better – Grief and Love

John 15:9-11:  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. 

I’ve been asked many, many times why grief hurts so much.

Here’s the reason. We grieve what we love.

It’s that simple and that difficult. If we do not love something, we may be bummed or disappointed. When we grieve the loss of something deeply meaningful? It’s excruciating pain. We wonder if it is possible to keep going.

As I have watched people journey through grief and experienced it myself, one discovery I’ve made is that our deepest of pain is directly related to our greatest love. The more we love something, the more intense the pain is when we lose it. When we allow ourselves to experience the deepest love we can imagine, we are opening up ourselves for the most hurtful pain and suffering. We can’t have intense love without potentially exposing ourselves to the most hurtful pain. Love and pain aren’t mutually exclusive. They are directly tied to each other.

Grief can and should shift our understanding of love. It allows us to love more than we think possible. Pain helps define our awareness of love. Our greatest suffering point can become our greatest expression of love.

This week, I heard a beautiful interview that conveyed this same message. Over 50 days ago, an 84-year-old woman named Nancy Guthrie went missing from her home.  She is the mother of well-known Today Show co-host Savanah Guthrie. As of today, it is not clear what happened to Nancy. She’s not been located. Imagine the pain Savannah and her two siblings are living with right now. I can’t even.

Recently, Savanah sat down with her friend and former co-host, Hota Kobt and talked about pain, suffering, love and faith. There are three segments of the interview. Savanah talks openly about her faith and how this nightmare has challenged her to reflect more deeply about her faith. While I think watching all three is worth your time, I’m sharing one of the three segments below. I encourage you to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23iS6EtAZTs

One thing that struck me in this interview is how Savannah talks about how her greatest love is tied to her greatest pain.

This is how pain and love are. One cannot be excluded from the other. As much as we don’t want pain in our lives, we cannot have the most extreme experience of love unless we open ourselves up to a similar level of pain.

We have a wonderful example of this as part of our faith story. It’s the story of the cross. The story of Jesus, the Son of God, the greatest love of God, dying on a cross. Imagine choosing to let your son do this. For all of humanity. I can’t even.  

God knew that deeply loving God’s son would also include experiencing the deepest level of pain imaginable. And yet, God was willing to take all of this on. Model for us that there is hope and a resurrection on the other side. We can’t experience the joy of Easter Morning without the horror of Good Friday.

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday – the beginning of Holy Week. Truth? Holy Week is my favorite week of the year. I know. It’s maybe a bit odd. It’s the stories that we get to recall this week that speak to this great love and pain. We watch Jesus ask for this awful event to be removed from him. Yet, he stays true to who he is as the Son of God at the very end and does what is necessary for you and me to know the extreme and deep, deep love of God. And for this to happen, it means exposing Godself to the most excruciating pain imaginable: the death of his son in the most awful way possible.

May I encourage us to remember these stories? Read them and reflect upon them? Rediscover them for ourselves at this stage of life. I’ve put together suggested readings for each day of Holy Week. Take a few minutes each day. Read these words and reflect upon what this story means for you today. Does God’s deep, deep love mean something to you? Does Jesus’ willingness to take upon himself all the pain and suffering of the world matter to you?

Holy Week should be a mixed bag of emotions: love, pain, anger, disappointment, compassion, lack of compassion and a whole bunch more. Allow yourself to run the gamut of emotions this week. Jesus certainly did throughout the last days of his life. In the midst of this, I pray that you catch a glimmer of just how deep and wide and complete God loves you; especially when you are in pain.

Holy God – As tough as pain and suffering is, may I experience a deeper meaning of love as I journey through Holy Week. Help me see just how extreme your love is for me, Dear God. And appreciate the pain You accepted so I could experience this significant love. Amen.

Blessings –

Dianne

Looking for a bit of daily inspiration? Check out my daily affirmation posts on Facebook and Instagram (Dianne Deaton Vielhuber and Simple Words of Faith.)

Upcoming Unraveling Together: Sharing the Threads of Grief Presentations:

Wed., April 8 – First Presbyterian Church of Baraboo, 9 AM