Grief and Love

Have you ever stopped and thought about how the process of grieving and loving are so similar?  Welp, as often happens I get to contemplate philosophical questions such as these while walking at dawn.   It is a serene time to exercise (ugh, don't call it that Sylvia!!) and mentally be still at the same time.  In the stillness this morning Holy Spirit revealed just how alike grief and love are.  I got to respond with, 'pray tell, tell me more' while being frustrated that I didn't have a pencil and paper handy to write down His thoughts.   But this is what I recall:  Both Love and Grief can happen suddenly to you like being hit by a runaway train; or they can come on gradually until all you can see is the narrow tunnel before you.  Both love and grief swell your heart to a capacity you did not know you were capable of experiencing.  Both flow over you in waves at the most unexpected times.  Both can be very inconvenient and cause you to act out in unfamiliar ways.  People notice when you are intensely experiencing either love or grief and often they are at a loss for the words that might restore your sanity.  Love and grief can leave you disoriented stumbling through a passion unlike other emotions.  Both can paralyze good decision making.  The bible says in 1John 4:18 perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment; but not grief.  Grief is not the opposite of love any more than the letter 'A' is the opposite of the number '1'.  Grief is not a punishment.   Both emotions have their place in 1 Peter 1:6.  We are gifted with both  to experience them in all of their fullness in due season.  I am not sure you are ever "over" either love or grief; they just are what they are when they are.  I do know that Holy Spirit is a comfort in the heady experiences of both love and grief.  He and He alone can quiet your crazy intensity to focus back on the source of all when it gets to be too much to bear.  He and He alone can remind you not to idolize the person eliciting these emotions but to thank the Giver for the gifts.