Work Text:
How do you grieve when your loved one still lives?
Where do you find your closure?
The person you once knew
Seems to be forever gone,
But they don't have to be.
I miss her.
I miss the sister that just seemed to get me,
But so clearly didn't in the end.
I miss the person who seemed to share my fire for God's kingdom,
My zeal for evangelism,
And my heart of compassion for the human race.
One morning, I woke up,
And the kindred spirit that I was certain that I knew
Just vanished,
At first leaving behind the faintest of traces of herself
Only to have these later fade into obscurity as well.
But did this have to occur?
She isn't truly gone,
Is she?
She could return if she wanted to,
She could be that person she convinced me that she was;
Even if I was only interacting with a false image,
It wasn't entirely false.
The person she portrayed for months could be the real version.
She can make her own choices,
So why would she pick this heartless, nearly God-forsaken shell of existence
Over the beautiful Christ follower I saw?
Why go down this dark path?
I grieve for that as well.
I grieve for the lost future,
The lost companionship,
The lost sisterhood,
The lost assignment we were to complete together from God,
The loss of such a beautiful heart and soul for his kingdom,
The loss of one of the few people I believed truly cared and understood.
I grieve for so much.
Lost time,
Lost effort,
Lost family,
Lost love,
Lost purpose,
Lost promises,
And a lost soul?
I grieve for the falling away that never had to occur.
I grieve for what seems to me at this time to be an utter waste of it all.
But I have to treat it like a death.
The reality is, this person did die.
I have no guarantee that I will ever see her again.
So many people lately are telling me that the story isn't over,
But in order for it to continue in whatever way it needs to
I have to try to accept the fact that maybe it truly is.
In order to possibly one day regain a blessing that God was trying to give us both,
I need to learn to let it go.
But I don't know how.
I know how to grieve a death;
I know that I will either see the person again one day in Heaven
Or that the person has gone to hell and I will truly never see them again.
All of this is acceptable.
I know how to grieve for lost expectations
That were based in false hope on my end;
I know how to cope with the fact that
My biological family was mostly never able to be a true family
I can handle grieving for what simply never could have been.
I can grieve for lost opportunities;
When I have failed to take action, and my losses are a
Direct result of my poor choices, this too is acceptable.
But how do I grieve for what was supposed to be,
Not according to my will alone, but more importantly by far,
According to the will of God?
For a type of death that would have occurred
Even had my behavior been flawless?
How do I accept that?
It isn't just potential I dreamt of in my own vein imaginings,
But rather a blessing that the Lord was trying to bestow on us both
That one so nonchalantly threw aside in the quest for what exactly?
And worse still, one that she doesn't even seem to care about anymore,
Telling me that she wished she had given into her will sooner
Instead of fighting harder for what God wanted.
What do I do with that?
And as to the story not yet being over,
Do I even want it to continue?
Not particularly.
How could I ever begin to trust such a person again?
But if God told me I needed to?...
I truly hope I don't have to answer this question anytime soon.
I feel so far from ready.
How do I even begin to make sense of this?
It is not unprecedented.
The Lord had great plans for Israel
But in the end, due to her constant unfaithfulness,
He had to divorce her.
She broke His will again and again and again,
Until He had to leave her to her own temporary demise
For His own sense of justice.
I certainly am not God,
But I was doing my best to carry out His will.
Tons of people have told me how hard I tried,
And they lament with me over the loss.
"You tried so hard,"
"You showed her so much love,"
"You gave so much effort and time trying to fix things,"
"You loved her so much,"
"You kept trying for God even when everyone told you to stop,"
"God will use your faithfulness for good,"
"Maybe one day, she'll truly realize all you were trying to do for her."
Though these words are true, they bring little comfort
Because what good did any of it do in the end?
All it did was bring more and more pain,
More loss,
More confusion,
And more excruciating betrayal
To a person who has already been broken so many times…
And God knew it all would happen.
I faced that anger, asking Him why,
Why if He knew such a thing would occur
He didn't tell me to run from this in the beginning.
Oh yes, we've had that conversation a couple of times,
And the answer lies in the book of Hosea.
Hosea was commanded by God to marry an unloving wife,
An adulterous prostitute.
But it was to bring glory to the people of God in the end.
And that is the point of this as well.
There was a fine and slim chance that all of this could have turned out
Just as beautifully as God had intended it to,
But the broader path was chosen in the end.
So now my pain will serve to help others.
My grief will show others in similar situations that they are not alone.
My experiences can be used to help bring others closer to Jesus.
But in the meantime,
My spirit is utterly crushed,
Split,
Torn,
And fragmented,
Twisting agony gnaws constantly at my insides,
Coursing through me with sharp repetition on an hourly basis.
And the core of it all comes from this one simple question:
How could a true Christian cause another so much anguish
And truly hold so little remorse?
The reality is,
A true Christian couldn't,
Because the true love of God
And respect for Him
Would have won out in the end.
So my reality is that the woman of God
I loved with such deep sisterly affection
Was truly only a glimmer of the potential
God showed me in her.
In the end, many things mattered
Far more than the Lord and His will did to her.
But it didn't have to be that way!
And it still doesn't!
How will this story finally end?
I hate the pain of all of this so much.
It is my motivator and yet my greatest of enemies.
It empowers me to do what I must do,
But I take little pleasure in it.
I pray to one day see the fruit of all of this.
Lord, do not let all of this go to waste.
Turn it into good as only You can.
And for tonight, hold me once again while I weep,
Grieving the lost sister that I so desperately miss.
And if I feel all of these things so deeply and intensely,
How much more devastating is all of this for You?
This question breaks my heart all the more.