But I need love with skin on - Pt 2

Excerpt: If the loss of love breaks your heart, don’t hide your pain or minimize your loss. God doesn’t. Nor does He try to take the place of your loved one. No one can. Not even God. But He'll take His. Beside you. If you let Him.

(This post was originally published on February 13, 2018)

In the last post, I looked at our need for ‘love with skin on’. A need we all feel. Like hunger, we notice it most when it's not met. Or if we lose a love we once had. God is acutely aware of this need. As He gave it to us.

He knows how a loss affects our hearts. It affects His too. Unlike Hannah’s husband, God doesn't say ‘Am I not enough?’ when He finds us weeping. He weeps with us.

What makes loss so painful is the deep sense of my loved one’s absence. Like a deep ache in my bones, it won't leave. A Grand Canyon size hole in my heart. I try to navigate around it every day. But even the path around it is a virtual mine field. For anything can trigger a new wave of grief. A song. A smell. A memory. A photo.

If your hope for love is deferred year after year, you'll grieve deeply too. Or if your loved ones are close but your hearts are not, you too know the ache of loneliness.

We are not meant to live without love!  It is to the heart what blood is to the body.
It's not just a want. It's a need. Without it, life hurts. Yet what can we do about it?

The loss I couldn't prevent. The love I can't recover.

We can't make people love us, bring back our loved ones or reverse tragic events.
I feel so helpless when I'm overtaken by a loss I couldn't prevent and can’t change.
Deep grief can leave me paralyzed. Especially if I get stuck on the ‘why’ question.

‘Why’ is a crucial question. But I won’t ask it here or try to answer it. Not that it doesn't matter. It does. But my words won't help. Why? I don’t know the answer! Even if I did, it can wait . My presence, my silence and my love are far better gifts.

If my heart's breaking, I need comfort more than I need answers. To the grieving, most answers to ‘why’ questions feel like pat answers. Which rarely eases the pain. There is a time to ask ‘why’. Just give your heart time to catch up with your mind.

My concern with asking ‘why’ too early is this. Regardless of the answer, it very rarely satisfies my urgent need to make sense of it. So a broken heart breaks again.
I've heard sufferers say, 'I wouldn't do this to my child. Yet God's done this to me!'
I don't need to defend God here. Let them voice their pain. Or anger. God would.

I think a more helpful question is ‘how’. How do I live with this pain I can’t escape?

Loss is inevitable and painful. Help me grieve my
loss in a way that doesn't create even more pain.

Learning to grieve is like learning to sky dive the hard way. You realize you need lessons only after you’re pushed from a plane at 12,000 feet. I know of no easy way to 'manage' a loss or my grief. What I usually do is just opt for whatever thoughts or strategies my own mind comes up with. Some of them are helpful. Most are not.

It seems the thoughts that don’t help are those I default to most. Here's a few that may show up when I hurt. Remember, they're just thoughts. Yet if I believe them or hold on to them, these beliefs about loss can intensify the heartache I already feel

    Common thoughts or responses when love is taken away or withheld:

• How can God care if He keeps ignoring my need for love?
• I blame me. Not God.  It's my fault. I drove everyone away.
• Why am I still alone and still unloved? I'm not worth loving.
• I hate desire! If I didn't want love, I wouldn't hurt so much.
• I can’t trust God with my heart! He's the one who broke it!
• Why open my door to a new friend and let more pain in?
• I would much rather live alone because of my choice than to be left alone in life because of someone else's choice.
• No one understands the depth of my pain. Especially God.

• I can’t trust God with my need for love.  I'll meet it myself.
• I feel guilty. For being so needy and for feeling so lonely.
• I must 'be strong'. So I minimize my loss. Hold in my grief.
• I assume i hurt because of sin, discontent, self-pity, idolatry. Face your issues but don't relabel grief and call it an 'issue'.
• I must lack faith. If I trusted God, it wouldn’t hurt like this.
• Don’t tell me God comforts. If He does, why do I still hurt?
• I resent God for a life without love, so now I've lost Him too.
• Trying to hold in my grief is like trying to hold back the tide.
  

So how do I grieve in a healthier way? I think just asking ‘how’ instead of ‘why’ is a good start. Proverbs says there is safety in wise counsel. And grieving hearts need to feel safe. For a few helpful resources on grief and loneliness, see links below. 

Having said this, it is wise to seek God's counsel first. For it's His help I need most. Ask Him, ‘How do I do this? How do I face life alone? What do I do with my pain?’
He will speak. Through His Word, His Spirit or His people. People can be a help. Especially if I listen to God as I talk to them. It's not either-or. I need God and you.

But if you feel God caused your pain, you may not want to talk to Him. It's OK. But talk to someone. I'd rather my kids open up to a trusted friend than hold it inside.

Don't deny or minimize the pain of your loss.
God doesn't.

If the loss of love leaves a gaping hole in your heart, please don’t stifle your cry in your desire to be strong. Don’t mask the pain, hold the tears or surrender to guilt. Pain intensifies if we deny it. Don't minimize the impact of your loss. God doesn’t. 

Like God, we're emotional. He understands why we hurt. Don't let yourself wallow in it or seek comfort in self-pity. But give yourself permission to grieve. God does.

Those who grieve say that what helps their heart most is the presence of a friend.
The sting in grief is a deep sense of absence. That's why presence matters. A lot.
If we hurt, we need the presence of good friends. God wants to be one of them.

“Joy is not necessarily the absence of suffering.
It is the presence of God in the midst of it.”
Sam Storms

This quote helps me. If I think God’s comfort is the removal of all pain and later  find I’m still hurting, I'll likely assume that either my faith is weak or God is absent.  For the ache of a loved one's absence can make me wonder if God is absent too.