How Do We Survive Grief?

"Small joy is how we survive big grief."

This quote came across my Instagram feed just days after I'd been miscarrying in the ER.

I'd found out my baby didn't have a heartbeat about two weeks prior. Just a couple days after learning my mom's cancer came back, and that she'd need surgery.

Postpartum depression was something that'd hit me hard after my first child, so I knew it was coming for me. Yet I still found myself surprised at the intensity with which grief would appear.

You don't realize before you're in it how grief comes in such waves. Sometimes they're like tiny splashes from a kiddie pool. Other times they resemble the kind of thing which swells in the middle of the ocean, overturning your ship.

Distraction may not be the healthiest coping mechanism, but it's what I often find myself defaulting to. And yet, the enormity of one's feelings and experiences cannot be ignored. We must ride them out and pray we can keep floating.

"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer." (Tolkien)

The concept of "moving on" isn't something that I'm sure I'll ever accept. Because how can such great darkness be overwhelmed and repaired? The world cannot go back to the way it was. Someday our deliverance will be finalized and "everything sad will be made untrue".

But until that point, I find the greatest acts of defiance against the dark to be the cultivation of those "small joys". Truth found in the company of others, traditions and the foundation of Scripture. Beauty in the way my daughter grows, plays, and wants to help with everything I do. Goodness in how several loved ones have remained faithful in these hard times - reminding me of what is true and ministering with their presence.

So, dear reader - how will you be fighting back the dark today?