Life and Grief

Hello and welcome back or welcome if you are new. I'm so glad you're here!

Today's post is a little different than normal and this is something that I really never talk about in real life or online (except in my therapist's office, of course). But I just felt led to share my personal journey with grief.

To be honest, I have no idea really where this is going to go as I really don't have a plan of what to say, so I'm just going to go with it. Maybe this is just for me or maybe it's for you who is reading, or maybe a little bit of both, eh? At any rate, let's just jump right in.

So, to start off, I suppose you need to a bit of my backstory with grief. Long story short, when I was 14 years old, my dad and I were in a motorcycle accident and my dad was killed and I walked away with minor (physical) injuries. That's a pretty like rare and crazy experience within itself but then to add insult to injury, 3 days later, my great-aunt was killed in a car accident on her way home from my dad's visitation (we were quite close). Now, I will also go ahead and note that I have an anxiety and depressive disorder which I was diagnosed with when I was 22. That being said, I don't really deal with much depression but have dealt very heavily with severe anxiety in the past 2 years. Through therapy, we've also discovered that aside from just the anxiety, I deal with something called complicated grief. Which is basically just grief that isn't fully dealt with or has not fully went through the "steps" of grief.

Okay, keep in mind it took me 8 years to come to these realizations. But those diagnoses aside, I want to talk about the effects of my complicated grief from the trauma I experienced from losing my father and my aunt.

Since I lost my dad so suddenly and at such a young age (my dad was only 42 when he was killed), my brain is almost like trained now to, not only, expect for something to traumatic to happen to someone I love but for that traumatic thing to happen at a younger age. For example, one of my number one fears is losing my husband and because of my past experience with my father, my brain is pretty much constantly on high alert for potential threats to my husband. And that probably sounds a little crazy, but it's true. I would have to say, one of my biggest fears in life is becoming a widow, especially as a young age. Not only because I love my husband so insanely much but also because I watched what becoming a widow did to my mom. I have an awesome mom, but for years I had to watch her struggle and be so unhappy and that hurts me to even think about. And it doesn't stop with my husband... it's my children, my grandparents, my mom and step-dad, my sister, my in-laws, my best friend, even people I don't even really like! It's like I cannot turn it off.

Lately, it's really got on my nerves too. My husband was going to pick up my step-daughter about an hour away and my brain was like "This is it, he dies today." and I finally just got so annoyed with it and prayed "God, I think the worst part about losing my dad has been these near constant morbid thoughts." Now, that was prayed out of emotion because obviously the worst part of that trauma is no longer having my dad and my aunt. But, I think it is fair to say that the worrying about losing my loved ones all the time is rather annoying and exhausting and that day, I just kind of was so sick of having these thoughts.

Now, you'll notice that I've referenced my brain a couple of times. My brain is trained, my brain tells me, my brain was like... but you know what? It's not my brain. Well, it is my brain, but my mind is being attacked by Satan through my probably biggest weakness, worry. I'm a natural worrier. I worried a lot even as a young child. But our tendencies are not too big for God.

Of course during this global pandemic, I've worried a ton, especially about the health and wellbeing of myself and my loved ones. I remember while watching online church one Sunday, our pastor was talking about a fellow pastor he knew, posting on Facebook about a dream he had about how in the fall things would get bad in America. How trucks would not be able to get into cities and there would be a food shortage. I'm not here to say whether that is something that may happen or not (obviously praying for that not to happen) but as our pastor was talking about this my immediate reaction was worry. Worry, panic, fear... the second it was mentioned. But not even 15 seconds later, I got a feeling of peace and I heard God whisper to me "I will provide." Three simple words. And that has given me the ultimate comfort, not just through the midst of the pandemic but in the midst of my constant worrying in general.

So, I really don't know why I felt like sharing this. It's one of those things that I can only explain is a "God thing". Again, I don't know if this was just for me or if maybe someone out there at some point needed to read this but here it is. I'm working on being sensitive to the Holy Spirit and doing what God is calling me to do, even if I don't understand. And let me say, I think it was meant to be written and shared because I've been fought very hard on getting this written. My dog has barked at me approximately 457 during the writing of this post for me to throw his ball (which is completely out of character because it's super hot outside where we are sitting and our dog is super lazy and will chase the ball like 5 times tops within a day).

If you're dealing with grief, feel free to reach out and leave a comment or head over to my Instagram. I am happy to pray for you or talk with you.

Most importantly, just remember, the God of the universe loves you and despite what may happen in your life, God will provide for you. He didn't bring you this far to let you die. You have a purpose.

"Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life." - Matthew 6: 26-37

Thank you for reading.

Until next time.