What does healing after a loss really look like?
After the loss of my marriage, I believed healing would be returning to the person I was before. I still look back at pictures from seven years ago and see blissful ignorance in my eyes. I can’t help but envy that girl, even if just a little.
Eventually, when I couldn’t deny the pain any longer, I decided to try to intentionally grieve. It wasn’t until months (maybe even a year later) that I also needed to choose a life of healing.
This life is one of joy, beauty, and peace married to the loss. It’s a balance between the light and the dark. No matter the death and destruction we find ourselves surrounded by, we can choose joy from exactly where we are.
Part of our way of doing this is acknowledging what healing after a loss actually looks like:
- Realizing grief is no longer debilitating
- Feeling the highs and lows again
- Gaining a refreshed desire to serve others
- Living with a sense of hope
- Speaking of who/what you lost and not getting overwhelmed
- The desire to spend time with others returns
- Learning to trust in God—no matter the circumstances
I will, most likely, always have deep feelings of sadness over what was lost. But instead of wallowing, I learned to welcome those feelings. It is a reminder that what I had was precious to me and served a purpose, even if that purpose was simply a new way to love.
Even in Christ’s resurrection, perhaps even each time we take communion, we feel His death. We feel the death and the triumph. In that death, we are reminded of His love and the lengths He would go to bring us closer to Him.
Healing means that we must spend time asking, “Is the Gospel message actually true?” Either Christ came and offered us peace and comfort, or He didn’t. He is either the strength to fight sin and darkness, or He isn’t. He either sent his spirit of truth, or he didn’t.
This is where the rubber hits the road. Healing is walking in the discovery of these answers for our own life.
When Christ shows up to heal, He looks deep into someone’s eyes and asks them, “Do you want to be healed?” True healing is never looking away.
What do you want to heal in your life? How are you praying for this? What does your first step toward a healed life look like?