I received this verse from a friend one day only a few months after our son died. It came with a nice picture through a text message if I remember correctly, or maybe she just showed it to me. My memory on that isn’t exactly clear now.
I do remember smiling and nodding my head in response. The verse reached my brain. Although, deep in my heart I wondered how my grievous tears and broken heart would ever give way to reaping anything that even slightly resembled joy.
Fast forward two years and nine months, past many valleys and dark days, and today I’m just starting to understand how those tears, which seemed to flow from the gaping hole in my heart, were sown into my life.
I’m not getting used to the idea of not having my son with us, I’m not getting used to a “new normal”, and time hasn’t healed my broken heart. Yes, I’ve heard those and all kinds of other platitudes from well-meaning people who only wished to make me feel better. It NEVER becomes normal that my son isn’t alive though.
What has become more normal is the way I see grief now. I understand on an entirely different level now what it means to lose a child, and what it means to grieve until you feel like you’d rather die too. It’s easy to say things which sound good to someone who is grieving, but after experiencing it personally, I can say it’s profoundly different.
What has become different is the way I look at and sympathize with those who are in similar situations. What has become different is the way in which I guard and choose my words better now. What has changed is the desire in my heart to be there for those individuals so they won’t feel alone, to listen and validate their pain, to tell them it’s okay to feel all the emotions they’re feeling and to somehow be the hands and feet of Jesus to them like never before. That’s the new normal I’ve experienced.
When I can do something as small as that for someone, even to the tiniest degree, I find that my own tears really have reaped joy into my present world. No, my son hasn’t returned, but I have returned - changed.
The joy comes for me in being able to give what I needed in my darkest moments to someone else. The joy comes in being able to wrap my arms tightly around a person and say absolutely nothing because I know how comforting that usually is. The joy comes in being able to offer a word of encouragement and maybe a soft prayer to someone who is grieving a little deeper on that particular day.
Yes, I have been reaping joy!
Just today, one of my dear friends is living through the anniversary date of the loss of her adult son 14 years ago. We chatted and talked about how our hearts really never heal and how we’re looking forward to the day when we are all reunited again. We “get” each other like others probably don’t. We talk the same language. We understand each other - the spoken and unspoken. Grief has connected us. (That’s another joy I’ve experienced.)
I came across this verse again yesterday. Thankfully!
Now, I can see there really can be joy. Not because what I lost was returned but simply because I have traveled the road, done the hard work, and made it far enough to know that joy looks a little different than what I was expecting.
But there is indeed joy!
And I’m still sowing...for another harvest.
Beautiful!
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