Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? In my unfathomable grief, your depth calls to the depth of my soul. I’m supposed to hope in you. I’m supposed to wait for you. And, as it sort of says in Psalm 42, my heart is supposed to long for you just as much (if not more) than a deer longs for a quenching draught of fresh spring water.
But now I shed tears at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And my heart breaks again and again as I remember how things used to be when my son Chad was still alive. What joy that I didn’t know was joy! All I hear is the tumult of the raging seas (and I feel it, too, infused into my very cells) as your waves and surging tides sweep over me. To be more precise, they crash over me. It feels as if I'm drowning, but I know that it is only in the deep that I can find you. So take me there, then.
Take me to the deep, where my tears have created a sea of their own. Where your intensity can match mine. Where you can fill the black trench of my wretched grief with your infinite sea of grace. Submerge me, douse me, quench me in what they call your living water. Oh for goodness sake, drown me in it, why don't you?
Then, if you must, and if you please, take me even deeper. Because I think you're going to have to undo me to redo me. And for all of that to happen, I'm going to need some Big Grace, please. The kind of grace that deeply moisturizes. The grace emollient.
In the meantime, please don’t forget about me. Don’t let me wander around in this grief any longer than necessary. Somedays it’s hard to hold on to you, and it's stressful with so many others watching and wondering: "How does she do it?"
"She" doesn't, but You do.
So keep pouring down that unfailing love, please.
Every day.
Just like Psalm 42 says...