Removing the grave clothes

I found myself sharing with friends this week that I feel like I'm living in a shoe box. One by one my regular touch points of connection for the last year have faded. Circumstances change, people move, there are various kinds of losses in different ways. I wondered if I'm just a city girl living in a small town. When I arrived back in the UK in February after spending a delightful and meaningful time in Cape Town, I felt like my wings had been clipped. I grieved the loss of easy connection and the joy of experiencing familiar delights. Building a life from scratch, alone, is not for the faint of heart. Its been many months since then and slowly a pressure has been building on the inside of me. My world is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. I feel a bit like Alice in wonderland who found herself inside a very small house, her arms breaking out of the windows and her head peaking out the attic. Grief, loss and barrenness can do that to you. It can hem you in, locked in memories of how it used to be, or stuck in the grief of what was lost, our hearts hardened by what never came to be, or boxed in by the world around us and our own fear of leaving the familiar.

“Sing, barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy,
you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband,”
says the Lord.
2 “Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.
3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your descendants will dispossess nations
and settle in their desolate cities.
Is 54 vs 1-3

Barrenness is not a difficulty for a month or two. Its the long term, persistent struggle of something that stubbornly will not shift. Barrenness means desolate, empty, a desert, bare, unproductive, dry, useless and sterile. It is in this condition that God speaks and says Sing! Expand! But how? As Bill Johnson once said "Miracles are not difficult, they are impossible". In order to see a miracle you first need an impossibility. Barrenness certainly qualifies.

Grief is a God given process to metabolise loss. He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death and leads us to the other side. When the grief is deep, however, we can find ourselves stuck there, camping in the valley, so to speak. I discovered this a few years ago during my own grief process. I had experienced a number of deep losses at the same time and it shook me to my core. It took me years to process all that happened. I started to read about grief to try and understand this new world I found myself in. During my search I stumbled across an article about the Jewish timeline and ceremonies of the grieving process. After one year of the deepest loss, they honour the memory of the lost loved one, remove the mourning clothes and then choose to step into life again. I had definitely passed the one year mark at that time and realised I was officially stuck in grief. But now I had an idea of how to move to the other side. I had to choose life. I had to choose to take off my mourning clothes and live again, by the grace of God. Then began the journey of learning to trust again, to be vulnerable again, to live again.

Just as Lazarus needed his grave clothes removed after being raised from the dead, so do we sometimes need our grave clothes removed. He couldn't remove them himself. Jesus instructed those around him to remove them. True community is a vital part of God's design for our healing and fullness of life. He will send us the very things we need through others. Relationships are God's mode of transport for blessing and provision. This takes vulnerability, humility, trust and wisdom to keep building those deeper connections.

The first thing God says is Sing, barren woman. He instructs her to sing while she is still barren. That word sing means to shout loudly with joy, like the neighing of stallions. It is exuberant joy, not in denial of her current condition, but in the celebration and joy of the promise given to her. She will spread out to the right and to the left with all her descendants.

Disappointments can lead us to harden our hearts. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Perhaps what we hoped for became an idol and first required our surrender. In God there is always hope regardless of what desires are fulfilled or not. It takes repentance, changing the way we see, to remove our hardness of heart. We think hardening our hearts will protect us. It doesn't. When the hardness is removed, the living waters of God can penetrate our hearts once again and release life within us.

It is time to sing, remove the grave clothes and enlarge the place of our tents. No matter the limitation surrounding us, we will spread out to the right and to the left. There is no box that can contain His Kingdom.

May His Kingdom come.