I am beginning to wonder if someone within five-minute Friday is reading my heart as the word choices over the last few weeks have cut close. At first, I feel shocked but then wonder if God is reminding me that hiding is not an option and that it’s also not healthy. How can we process emotions when we don’t acknowledge them? Yet ‘grief ‘I am not sure if this is an emotion that can be processed ,its definitely not one that we can work through, well its one I haven’t personally worked through and the end well I’ve come to the conclusion that the end of grief is heaven. 

November is one of the hardest months for me and this year has been no different, I have to face the anniversary of my daughter’s death but also this year has brought so much pain my heart aches just thinking about it. 

Yet I know grief isn’t just synonymous with death.

Right now, the world is lost in grief, many of us cannot see past the what should have been’s, the normal, the plans being cancelled, people we cannot visit and I know it’s hard. As one who has faced a lot of what should have beens’s I get it. I did not expect my child to be born with a severe neurological condition, I didn’t expect to not be able to travel due to illness, to spend birthdays and new year’s in hospital.

I did not expect to lose her.  

I have faced so many of what should have been’s. 

It’s hard. 

Yet sometimes “what is” can be rather special, 

No, I did not ever imagine having a child with a devastating condition, it never crossed my mind at any point. Yet she was one of the best things that life has ever blessed me with. I learned through her that life was to be lived for the moment that the reality is we are never promised a long duration, so we need to live in the present. We need to focus on the here and now and celebrate the moments. 

Expectations can be exciting, but they can also bring restriction. Sometimes we have to let go of what should be and celebrate the what is. 

Grief is hard and for me there is no earthly end, but I will never lose sight of the gift. 

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”

― Jamie Anderson

If you are grieving now hold on to the why. The wonderful people you miss desperately but love so hard. 

Focusing on the blessings isn’t easy and grief sometimes become a curtain which hides the gifts from us. But try, try in this season to tear back the curtain and celebrate the moments that made the memories and appreciate the memories yet to be made.