How Do I Grieve the Loss of Trust?
This morning I walked up the steps to our office. Sitting on the porch were two women talking. One I’ve known for more than a decade. I remember walking her through a hard time of great growth. I looked at her blog about it.
Sometimes we don’t know exactly what we are working towards.
We don’t know when we are going to get there.
We can’t see the end.
Every time we think we are nearing the top, the mountain keeps stretching on.
But we keep climbing.
We trust that whatever God has for us on the other side of that mountain —whenever we get there — is going to be worth it.
And it is.
She was learning to trust – to trust God in new ways. And it was so gratifying to see God meet her in that place. This morning, I knew that they were talking about this subject of trust. And having seen that it was worth it, I knew the first woman would be able to deeply encourage the second woman.
The issue at stake is that trust has been abused. Instead of finding safety, the trust and vulnerability resulted in wounding.
I have been in that place of betrayal and the invitation to bitterness. God’s grace to me was that he gave me a clear choice: I could either agree to welcome bitterness into my heart, or I could quickly and irrationally choose to forgive and to again trust my broken heart to God as my protector.
And on the heels of that, I learned that I needed to grieve. I needed to recognize the trust that I’d lost and grieve the relational wreckage that ensued. It was hard. But it was grace.
Grief is never something we go looking for. But to push grief away, to refuse to feel its depths and bury its effects where they can’t touch you is to limit your ability to be free in joy when it comes. It’s the emotional equivalent of folding your arms across your body, holding yourself in more tightly.
And here’s the problem with that posture: You were made to fly and folded arms can’t fly.
When Henri Nouwen says “joy and sorrow are the parents of our spiritual growth,” he’s hit upon a huge issue. Grief exists with joy on a continuum. Try to limit the grief in your life by walling it off when bad things happen, and you’ll also limit the joy you can feel. It’s a spiritual principle.
To expand the range of joy in your life, you have to fully process the grief you experience. But embracing grief is a costly thing. Ask Jesus. “A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” He bore all our sorrows – physically carried them in his body on the cross so that we could never again say “God, You have no idea how I feel.”
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This is very true and a good reminder! Thanks Seth
Seth, l know these words have percolated out of at points very hard experiences for you. Knowing someone 40 years offers a keen vantage point. l have shared a similar trek where in a season it seemed by every appearance and felt at the blistered places of my soul that some who claimed to be “covenant brothers and lifelong friends” actually seemed by my own view adept at the sordid gift of “throwing people under the bus.” It took time. At points l acted like a dying fish having been dropped on a splintered ocean pier to die an agonizing death. But, the whispering winds of grace, salve of hope, fields of forgiveness and elixirs of encouragement from new, authentic, life giving tribes of openly “wounded healers”, eventually resuscitated my anemic life. Miracles happen in the simple, seemingly mundane. Grandiose faith isn’t faith at all. And simplicity is the most nourishing “soul food” item on salvation’s salad bar. We run to the roars of grief, not away in fear. And when we confront our greatest fears, we alchemize the ingredients to deepen our cosmic walk of faith and mercurially grow. Love never fails.
Butch
God help us. “Hurt people hurt people.” What I’ve learned is that we’re all hurt in deep ways. And that until we’ve done the hard work of grieving, we ourselves will find that hurt working its way out like a splinter beneath the surface of our skin. And so we fall into the cycle of being the hurt people whose hurt leaks out all over others. All we can do is the hard work of forgiving and seeking forgiveness so that what manifests in our consciousness is not the hurt, but the healing and the grace.
Agreed. And we let God be God. I love the peace, purpose and joy of a life devoid of ambition. The seminal question from the Father will be, “Did you look like me and understand and act out of your identity as a Son of God?” All the pontificating religious pomp & circumstance has no value. Freedom comes in caring less what people think and caring only how the light, life and fragrance of Jesus emanates from our being. Christ meets us in our delusions and delivers us from evil. That produces humble gratitude.
Thank you Seth and Butch for manifesting true brotherhood. On the other side of being “hurt people” you offer Wisdom. Thank you for pressing through the thresHOLD to freedom.
Hmmm 🤔
This is so deep… Cody Carnes song “Run to the Father” comes to mind.
Thank you Dad!