You Are Here
With so many apps and tools to help us get places, I still like to see a large map that tells me where I am. I like to see the dot that says, “You Are Here”. I can see exactly where I am, what’s near and find the way to where I’m going. Similarly, it’s the same for our grief journey. In the blur and haze of the first months of grief, it can be hard to see where we are. For me it was like being on a train that stopped. I could see and hear the other trains speeding by me. My train stopped suddenly. It was where I was. It was to be expected. My life stopped, but the rest of the world kept going.
There will be feelings of frustration and fear in our journey of grieving. We want to be somewhere besides where we are. There will be a time of waiting in the dark.
Last year a friend sent me the link to a poem by Sarah Bourns called, “The Darker the Dirt, the Richer the Soil.” Here are the last few lines of her poem.
Your way seems dark.
You feel as though you are being buried
down in the deep.
Jesus is there too,
waiting with you.
In the dark night of the soul.
In the deep dark of the soil.
And sometimes,
He doesn’t turn on the light.
But always,
He is with us through the night.
And He says,
Dear one, there’s a depth that comes in the darkness
you can’t find any other way.
There’s a peace budding quietly within
that sustains you for today.
There’s a beauty hidden in the fog
if only you have eyes to see.
There’s a richness buried in the waiting
that only time reveals.
And perhaps, what feels like a burial
is more of a planting.
And perhaps, what seems like dying
will one day be resurrecting.
And perhaps, what looks like darkness
is simply the moment
before
the dawn.
Waiting in the dark is sometimes where we are. But where we are is not where we will stay. As Sarah says, there’s a richness buried in the waiting.
The link to the entire poem by Sarah Bourns is here:
https://www.cmalliance.org/alife/the-darker-the-dirt-the-richer-the-soil/