Finding Melodie

"Losing. Grieving. Mourning. Loving. Living."

The Good Cry

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I feel sometimes you have to be with your process.

For me, that may mean getting a cotton facecloth, sitting down on my bed with my bedroom door closed and letting my emotions connect with my heart and grieve the desires in this heart that continue to live unmet, unfulfilled.

To cry and to lament what I want is not what I have.

And to express my sadness in that.

And the reality that right now, what God has given is what I have.

The tension of where hope and here co-exist together. The reality of the good and the tough tracks of life that we all live on at the same time, no matter the season. The inevitability of what it means to live actively in your waiting. And that this spiritual growth producer that waiting and longsuffering become in you continues with you, in every decade.

What is it about waiting that God deems so necessary for us as His children?

Why does it vex my humanity so?

I want things now but I’m guided to live in light of the yet-to-come.

My heart doesn’t always understand. My mind tries to make things logical, practical, strategic. My tears just know the wait has been long and ‘holding pattern’ feels like the answer that I keep getting.

Lord, I’m listening. Help me to hear the way you are speaking to me.

Modern poet Joekenneth Museau says, “People aren’t taking time to deal with their own issues because there’s always a distraction or something to take you away from what’s going on inside.”

I can feel things that need to be expressed in me before the words come. The tears are my indicators. I give them their propers. And respectfully move my logic and thinking to the backseat of myself and allow my emotions to drive me for as long as the good cry is needed, as long as it takes to truly out get it out.

I cry. I pause. I breathe. I cry again. Repeating this cycle, blowing my nose into that facecloth, embracing what the tears are helping me to do: deal with my life and what I’m feeling and what those feelings want to tell me.

Sadness isn’t bad. It’s a feeling just as joy is. I want to make space for my sadness. And to give my tears room to breathe.

Photo by JD Mason on Unsplash.

Because We’ve Loved Deeply

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The new year has begun. And while many of us are jumping with joy into our new goals, resolutions, and even relationships, others are navigating unexpected pathways into grief and mourning, due to the deaths of loved ones.

In one of my community of friends, I have several brothers and sisters who are mourning the recent death of a dear sister and friend in ministry named E. She battled cancer for quite some time and this past weekend she entered into eternal healing and the loving arms of God.

I met E one time, about three years ago.

nordwood-themes-162462-unsplash.jpgShe encouraged me with her heart for God’s kingdom and to see oneness truly happen in the Body of Christ so that the love we have could touch those beyond church walls. She is a woman who leaves an incredibly deep legacy of love, intentional living, and fruit that has borne witness to the power of the gospel of Jesus and God’s indescribable love for people.

She also leaves a husband and three young children, along with family members and a huge community of friends. People who are missing her deeply as the first few days of acute grief settle upon on their shoulders and the pain of the loss becomes a new part of normal.

I know that acute grief and that pain very well.

And from my own journeys of grief, I wrote these words and posted them on E’s CaringBridge site, as a comment to the post her husband wrote sharing that she’d passed away. My prayer for him and those mourning E is that they would be present with their grief. The grief has purpose and it is needed in this journey:

“A dear friend told me 10 years ago, ‘We grieve deeply because we’ve loved deeply.’ S, you and your children and so many others loved and will continue to love E deeply. Your grief is a unique and tangible reflection of that. It says with raised hands, ‘I loved someone, and it mattered, and there will always be something beautiful, significant and special about this.’ Grief shows us where the trees of love in our life have been planted. You planted deeply with E. That love will continue to grow in you and comfort you in the journey ahead. Sending my prayers from Orlando. I am so very sorry for the loss of your beautiful bride. Praying God’s comfort and supernatural peace in this time.”

For those who grieve please know this: you are not alone and as much as you want to let others into your journey with you, please do.

For those who know people who are grieving: choose to be present with them and encourage them. Love them and check in on them regularly. The lessons you see them learn in their grief could help you in future seasons where you too will enter the house of mourning as well.

Life is a gift and it is also finite. The days we have here on Earth will pass by faster than we can imagine. Living and loss are entwined together. We can learn much from both.

Nia

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I think of her and my breath still gets taken away. What if 21 years ago I was walking somewhere with people I love and a random stranger, a white male recently released on parole, ran up to me unprovoked and stabbed me in the neck and stabbed my loved one and then ran away? 21 years of my life as a black young woman would have ceased to exist. Because everything after that heinous moment would not have been. Every laugh that tickled up my vocal chords into the ears of those who love me, every new birthday, every moment growing more into this brown skin, every tear shed through struggles that made these melanin muscles stronger, every breath given from God that gave me more footing to see this world and love and discover Him deeply. Everything would have stopped at 18. It’s not fair that everything has stopped at 18 for her. It’s not fair, it’s not right, and I’m numb at times understanding and living out what it means to be a black woman in America…and the intersectionality that comes with it.

Nia, I remember you, little sister. I remember you. I want this to be made right. I want this to be better. #NiaWilson #sayhername

Finding Me Truth #10: The Unexpected

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Amazing how years after a loss, the grief can still be so debilitating & quite unexpected.

Reflecting and grateful for the pain.

It means I have loved.

“Grief is love’s souvenir. It’s our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I love well. Here is my proof that I paid the price.” ― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior: A Memoir

We Need Rescue

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James. Randy. Brian. Cedric. Jason. Quinton. These are the names of men I love. Men who are my father. My uncle. My cousins who are like brothers. My brother. Men whose blood and love runs through my veins. Men who are my family. Men who are black.

My daddy left this earth 11 years ago. The others have found a way to thrive here.

It’s hard to survive on this earth and it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

One day I hope to marry a black man and one day I just may have a black son. I haven’t even met them yet and I worry about the trauma and loss that can come with their blackness when it’s hard to survive on this earth.

The type of trauma and loss the families and friends of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile are walking through like a steel fog that refuses to lift.

It’s hard to survive on this earth. It’s hard to survive on this earth.

And it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

I want to believe the sheer weight of humanity means something today in 2016. I want to believe that we can be more intentional to preserve life. I want to believe.

The city of Dallas is rocked this morning by deep grief and inconsolable tragedy. Five police officers are dead and several more injured along with two civilians, ambushed by a shooter who “said he wanted to kill white people – especially white officers,” because he was upset about recent police shootings.

AtlantaMy mother spent nearly 30 years of her life serving as a civilian employee with the City of Atlanta’s Police Department. She assisted heads of police, loved and encouraged the officers and absorbed the losses of those killed in the line of duty as if they were our own family.

Black people, blue uniforms, we all have the common gift of hearts that beat and blood that moves through our bodies. Humanity ties us together.

But the loss of human life in these recent incidents feels insurmountable. Their heartbeats no longer beat and they were valuable. The people they beat inside of were valuable. People made in the image of God, with purpose. People woven into the story He’s written for this world.

Race is the conduit through which much pain and offense channels its way into our lives. This struggle is bigger than race. The very nature of our souls is the conversation topic on this table.

Souls that get blinded and lose heart. Souls that don’t detect and remember another person’s humanity. Souls that need rescue.

We all need rescue. God is the only one who can bring us out of this.

It’s hard to survive on this earth. It’s hard to survive on this earth.

And it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

In this difficult time in our nation, I invite you to mourn with those who mourn, with the families and friends left in the wake of these deaths. A heart-wrenching journey the loved ones of Christina Grimmie and the Pulse victims continue to walk through. An agonizing journey the loved ones of Lane Graves are experiencing because he was lost too.

Orlando

Lament with sorrow for the overwhelming loss of life in these shootings. Life is a gift God gives us.

Lament with sorrow for the tension and pain existing between communities of color and law enforcement. Decades of distrust and injustices keep people on the offense on both sides.

Lament with sorrow for the hate and bitterness that led human beings to take the lives of other human beings.

Lament with sorrow that left to our own devices humanity has no hope in this world.

Turn your lament into thanksgiving that God is our hope. He works through the details in disasters to redeem, restore, and heal.

Keep praying.

It’s hard to survive on this earth. It’s hard to survive on this earth.

And it takes just about a pure genius to thrive here.

For my black brothers, I see you. Don’t lose heart even though you have every plausible reason to. I want things to be different for you. I want you to be safe. I want you to be safe. 

For my black sisters, I feel you. We’re scared for the black men and boys in our lives and we’re tired of mourning the ones we lose. There’s a special fortitude in our DNA. Maybe God placed that in us for times such as these. 

For my non-black friends who stay in this heaviness with us as if this grief were your own, thank you. Thank you for really viewing this through lenses that push you beyond your own experience and beckon you to enter the black narratives we’ve been writing about our story for hundreds of years. The narratives that yell in bitterness and sorrow, ” This IS what is happening to us! Do you see US?”

For my non-black friends who don’t understand what’s happening in your news feeds on social media and why many of your black friends are angry, choose to enter into this with us. Choose to be willing to understand. Read the news. And not just the news you know. 

Think about your father, your uncle, your cousins, your brother. Make it personal to you and then you can see why it’s personal to us.

#AltonSterling #PhilandoCastile #DallasPoliceOfficers 

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What I Know To Be True

Just when you find that sweet spot in life, that comfortable place, that uncanny familiar, change comes in like a flaming bat out of hell and whirlwinds all your comfortable up. If you’re limited in your thinking you’ll fight it every way you can. But, if you’re ready to grow, you’ll embrace change like a new love and let it lead you to growth you could never dream of but always sensed you desperately needed.

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