Sidewalk Prophets - You Love Me Anyway (Official Video)

Finding Community in my Despair

27 December 2015, I blogged looking forward to 2016 and thinking, “I might just make it." Today almost three years later I'm thinking, “what were you thinking... This grieving thing is too much to handle!!!!!” As I write that a bunch of things are going through my heart and mind. I feel a failure... pretentious... and a whole bunch of things I never wanted to be.

A very well meaning person that I love and respect told me a few days ago that he thinks that it is about time I get up and face my grief and move on.

WOW! That really struck a nerve. I did not know what to say or do after that. I thought, “Isn’t that what I have been trying to do?” Then I thought a few other things that I can’t dare to say out loud or write down. BUT really... is it really time to move on from my grief? Is that even possible? How would I do that? Could I really have grown stuck in despair? WHAT’S GOING ON? I don’t like this feeling... It sucks!

Seriously... Is this guy serious? How do you even begin to 'let go'? Who cares about joy? Right now I am struggling to breath... struggling to just cling on to life. Joy and love is not some magical bandage that wipes away loss or pain.

Despair is a present emotion... a very real everyday feeling... not some past feeling of regret... a everyday fight with darkness that tries to overwhelm you. It's not some decision to not feel pain or regret or loss. It's a conscious recognition that darkness is pushing in on you and that your capacity to overthrow it is very limited, But you certainly are more than a conquer through Christ that strengthens you.

Pain, especially the pain of loss, is overcome through surrender... surrender not to the pain but to the notion of healing it by yourself.

Our healing, if such a thing exists, lies in Christ and Christ is best experienced in His Faith Community. In fact, Christ is Christian Community! The Church is the body of Christ (or at least, we are suppose to be) supporting and aiding each other so as to ensure the entire body growing.

What am I saying? Let's see if I can make sense of my ramblings.

1. PAIN IS REAL, DON'T IGNORE IT!
2. CHRIST GIFTED US WITH COMMUNITY
3.WE WORK OUT AND THROUGH OUR PAIN, IN COMMUNITY
4. TRUE COMMUNITY IS CREATED THROUGH BEING

So, here is my plan. I will continue to face my pain (one day at time) and will endeavour not just to find Community but to BE Community... even if it's uncomfortable or painful... a Christ Community that not only receives the vulnerable but also become vulnerable. So that together we can edify, support and heal.

I have come to believe that moving on from my grief simply means embracing Community. COMMUNITY WITH EACH OTHER IN COMMUNION WITH CHRIST!

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."
1 Corinthians 12:12‭, ‬14‭-‬14‭, ‬18‭, ‬26‭-‬27 NIV