“It feels like I am drowning”

The days when the grief is for like of a better word, seems to be drowning you. In the beginning it is so consuming. It affects body, mind, and spirit. How can I get through, do I even want to, Can I even try feeling…paralyzed in pain. It has taken over your thoughts, concentration, your very being. You don’t want it too, but you can’t control this one. It won’t go into that place where you usually put your hurts, disappointments and pain. It has a “mind” of its own and you have no say! It is a feeling of helplessness, a hurt and a pain that is all too consuming. How can I, feels like I am drowning. I am reminded of what I have heard in my GriefShare group, lean into it. I have lived in California recently and when you go to the ocean, the waves are sometimes few and subtle,, other times they are harsh and huge. On the days that they are subtle and small, you experience them with not much trouble. When the ocean is rough the waves come with a constant pace, they are high and rough and if you are not careful you can drown. Early on those first days, months even that first years, I had allot of days where I just felt like I was drowning. The waves were rough and stirred up with hurt, pain, regret, why me?. It was to be expected, it was “normal”, but the experience of it was suffocating….much like drowning. The question became ” How do I keep my head above the wave…keep functioning, or how do I survive because it has taken over me and I am dying on the inside, do I give in…or? My children were hurting, my husband even more. You see it was at his hands my son’s live had ended. It took me learning to “ride” the waves, some days, allowing the waves to overtake me somedays. Somedays, I had to look straight at it, lean into it and ride it. That meant just acknowledging within myself and sometimes to others where I was emotionally while being intentional in moving… doing the next “right” thing. Other days it meant allowing it to overtake me of sorts, to just experience it and what I was feeling…not waddling, not even “dog pedaling” but being honest that if was bigger than me. In that, I had the sincere belief but not bigger than my God! A sincere cry that He was the only one who could keep me and expecting Him to do just that! On the night my son lay in the balance between life and death the word of God come to me. It was not the word one would expect in this situation but it turned our to be the word that would change my view. I mention this now but will share thoughts on what it meant for me in my journey later. The word was found in Romans 8:28.

In Psalms 121, I was reminded as recent as today, that He that keeps us neither slumbers or sleeps. A surfer, I am told knows how to ride the wave, but when it overtakes them how to ride in the wave. There would be many days that I would ride on and ride in but, the “keeper” and creator of it all, kept me until I made it to the other side. The side where His joy resides. The Joy which is just on piece of the “fruit” that he gives to us, even in the journey of Grief.