Grief. I am new to grief. At least the grief from losing a loved one. I could write a book on losing hopes and dreams but I’ll save that for another chapter. Before I was a stay-at-home dog mom, we would drive to the beach in Ventura after work to get space from the nuances of corporate life. Walking in the sand and the water grounded me in more ways than one. Some days the tides would be right where I thought they should be. Plenty of beach to relax without getting wet but the shore close enough to splash in. Some days the tide was hundreds of meters out and you had to walk quite far in the thinly wet sand to finally reach the roll of the water. Yet other days the tide was so high there was no beach and you would get sprayed by the waves just standing on the jetty. The water was deep and there was no playing around. In the last six weeks, this is how I have come to see grief. Most of the time it’s just there. Sadness, mourning and tears mixed with functionality, peace and gratefulness for the way it happened. In some moments it is like the thinly wet sand, where it takes a long walk through memories and physical remembrances to get to the tears. Yet other moments, the grief feels so deep that any little thing can unleash the tears and leave you feeling like you may drown in sorrow.

Rory hated the water. When she was young, she would run along the shore chasing birds. As she got older, she avoided it like the plague. She would stubbornly walk through the sand only because she was attached to a leash. She would not even tiptoe near the water and would attempt to pull us back to the trails or parking lots. One Summer we took her to a beach where dogs were allowed off leash. We thought this would be great fun for her. Freedom to frolic as she pleased. There was nowhere for her to run off to, the beach was down a staircase with tall cliffs running parallel to the shore. But our girl wanted none of it. She proceeded to run to the cliff and climb up it. Like a mountain goat. Anything to escape the shore. Some days she would acquiesce and just sit on a towel with a scowl or facing the wrong direction. For some reason though, when we moved to Washington, her interactions with water changed. She would go out in the rain, stomp through puddles and dig where the water meets the sand. She would tolerate rides on the kayak but if she could see shore, she would try to hop out and swim on her own. We didn’t even know she could swim. Was it the maturity of an aging dog? Was it her new found “call of the wild” attitude she seemed to embrace in the outdoor landscapes of Washington? Something else entirely? We’ll never know.

Will grief change like this over time? Will the tides ebb and flow into more predictability? Will it shift away from something that sometimes hurts so bad I wish I could physically rip it off of me? Will I someday be able to sail with the grief, jump off and swim through it to the shore without the fear of drowning? I hope so.

Unfortunately, grief is part of the human experience, due to the fall in the garden. If you love any living being, there will be grief. Even Jesus in his humanity wept at the death of a friend. And he knew he was going to raise his friend to life again (John 11). Luckily, Christ also overcame the world. I believe this means grief does not have to destroy us. If you are in Christ, you can have the assurance that He is using the loss and grief for your good (to shape you more like Himself) and his glory (Romans 8:28). It can hurt. We can feel sad and cry. We can be overwhelmed. But at the end of the day, He is our shepherd, our potter, our strength and our comfort. And that is the hope we can rest in. Even if I am never able to swim in the rising tides of grief without falling apart, I know I can look to a day when I can. Maranatha!

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:3-4