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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

grief

Why We Need to Feel Our Grief

May 1, 2019 By Michelle

“You’re going to feel some pressure,” the doctor murmured as he inserted the needle into my elbow. Turns out “some pressure” was the euphemism of the century. What I actually felt during the five-minute platelet injection was teeth-gritting, fist-clenched agony.

By the time the short procedure was over, hot tears were slipping down the sides of my face, along my hairline, over the edge of my jaw and down my neck, where they dripped one at a time, slowly and steadily like fluid in an IV bag, onto the white sheet beneath me.

Much to my surprise, once the tears started, they didn’t stop. Neither the doctor nor the nurse knew quite what to make of my silent but persistent weeping. The nurse thrust a fist full of tissues into my hand. The doctor advised ice, two Extra Strength Tylenol and limited elbow movement. And then they both fled, the nurse urging “take your time,” before pulling the door closed with a quiet click behind her.

I cried as I retrieved my purse from the hook and gingerly slipped it over the shoulder of my good arm.

I cried as I hurried through the waiting room, chin tucked, hair shielding my streaming eyes so as not to scare the living daylights out of the patients awaiting their own appointments.

I cried as I drove home, wrangling the steering wheel with one hand.

I was still crying as I tucked myself into the corner of the sofa, cradling my throbbing elbow with a cupped palm.

It was only then that it occurred to me that I might be crying over something other than my elbow.

Earlier that morning I had published the blog post I had written about my decision to quit book writing. As I’d sat in the orthopedist’s waiting room, I’d pulled the post up on my phone to read some of the comments that had begun to accumulate.

I didn’t expect any “big feelings.” Though I’d published the post about my decision that morning, I’d made the actual decision weeks before. Choosing to leave traditional book-writing and publishing was a decision that, after careful discernment, I believed in my heart was right and good. I acknowledged there was sadness – I even named it grief in the post – but mostly what I felt in the aftermath of the decision, and as I wrote the blog post about it, was relief, an unburdening.

Until, that is, the orthopedist’s needle pricked something else far beneath flesh, bone and tendon.

What began as a tearful reaction to unexpected physical pain crossed an invisible threshold. My tears at the sudden, sharp stab of the needle deep in the soft tissue of my elbow opened a portal of sorts into which I tumbled headlong, like a time-space traveler hurtling into an unfamiliar dimension.

The tears prompted by the unexpected jolt of searing pain opened the way to the sorrow and loss I had acknowledged in words but hadn’t actually allowed myself to feel.

Experts say that we Enneagram Type 3s are the least aware of and in touch with our feelings. Until recently I would have told you that I was a person who was very in touch with her feelings, thank you very much. But I am beginning to see this might not be entirely true. I am beginning to realize that just because you say you feel something and even name it publicly doesn’t mean you’ve taken the time and space to actually feel it – to wade into that sorrow and allow yourself to experience the confusing, uncomfortable, unkempt mess of it.

The truth is, it’s hard and deeply uncomfortable to feel, really feel, pain. No one actually wants to sit with and in pain. And yet, I believe the only path to true healing, growth and transformation is to do exactly that – to step into the pain, to stay in it and lean into it for as long as it takes. As so many wise people have said, the only way out of grief is through it.

After the emotional ungluing in the orthopedist’s office, I spent the rest of the week quietly and slowly reading through every beautiful, heartfelt, kind, loving, and encouraging email, blog post comment, Facebook message and tweet I received in the wake of my announcement about leaving traditional publishing. There were A LOT. (thank you!!!)

My inclination was to rush, to skim over these notes of kindness, empathy and compassion. I wanted to read through them fast, to get it over with in order to keep myself at arm’s length from whatever emotions might begin to rise to the surface.

But I didn’t do that. Instead, I read each message slowly and thoughtfully and responded personally to many of them. As I read and replied, I let myself receive and feel all the feelings – gratitude, love, joy, relief, regret, sorrow, fear, disappointment, grief. I stayed in the feelings, leaned into them – into their unruliness, into their stubborn refusal to be managed and contained.

It was uncomfortable and unfun to feel the real brunt of this loss. And yet, I believe it was an important and necessary step toward trusting in something that is, for right now, beyond what I can see.

Filed Under: grief, writing Tagged With: grief, writing

When You’re Not Feeling Very Adventy

December 14, 2017 By Michelle

I’ll be honest: I’m not feeling very Adventy this Advent.  I don’t have that sense of anticipation, the expectation that is often present in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I’m just…here. Slogging. Going through the motions. Checking chores off my list. I feel a heaviness inside, an unease I can’t quite put my finger on.

I find myself wishing it were Lent instead. Somehow these lackluster, angsty feelings seem more appropriate for those somber, mid-winter days.

Sixteen years ago on a sultry August day, during the early hours of labor with Noah, my first-born, I sat outside on the back patio, my hands resting on my big belly as it tightened and released, tightened and released. I called friends and chatted happily. Later I paced the backyard, deep-breathing as the cicadas sawed the thick humidity. I thought about my baby boy, my heart, head and gut a tangle of nervous, jangling joy.

Fourteen hours later I lay in a hospital bed in the dark. The nurse had piled three blankets on top of me. They were warm from the dryer, but still, I shook uncontrollably from somewhere deep in my core, like seismic waves rippling out from an epicenter. It wasn’t cold exactly, and I wasn’t in pain – the epidural had largely alleviated that — but something unfamiliar and frightening was happening to my body.

“You’re in transition,” the nurse told me, patting my shoulder as I gripped the sheets.

I was afraid. Around me the voices of encouragement receded. Everything grew hazy, the end point a dim prick of light. I lost focus. The goal seemed far away, unreachable. So fixed was I on the fear and the unfamiliar, I lost sight of everything else, including the baby boy I was about to birth into the world.

Transition…not the most appealing part of labor. Transition leaves you feeling shaky, out of control, lost and anxious. Transition dims your focus, blurs the way, has you gripping the bed sheets. Transition is when the hard, necessary work gets done, the work that will lead you out the other side again. But it’s not fun. It’s lonely and scary.

When You're Not Feeling Very Adventy

I feel like I am in some sort of transition right now, though I don’t know what I am transitioning out of and in to. It’s not as frightening as that first labor transition by any stretch, and yet, there is still a palpable sense of unease.

I recently read some verses in John that resonated with me. Something kept bringing me right back to the start of the paragraph to read and reread the same words again:

“Your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy, that a child is born into the world. So with you: now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 16:20-22)

Your time has come, says the Lord. Now is your time of grief.

Maybe you’re like me right now. Maybe you’re not feeling particularly Adventy this Advent. Maybe you’re feeling a little lost, a bit afraid, lonely, weary, shaky. Maybe you’re doing the hard work of transition. Maybe you’re not seeing Jesus very clearly right now when it seems like everyone else is.

It’s okay. Those words I read in John? Those words are from God, telling us that it’s okay.

Now is my time of grief. And the timing may be less than perfect, it being Advent and all, but now is the time nonetheless.

There’s hope. God still sees me, and I will see him again. And we will rejoice, Jesus assures me, for no one can take away our joy.

*This is actually an edited repost that was featured in the December issue of Gather magazine. When I re-read it this week, though, it resonated with me, because truth be told, I’m not feeling very Adventy this Advent. I hope, if you’re in a similar place, it will offer you a bit of solace. Peace, friends. 

 

Filed Under: Advent, grief Tagged With: Advent, Christmas and Grief, grief

Practicing the Ministry of Presence

June 28, 2017 By Michelle

Hi friends – I’m still on a blogging break, but I wanted to share my monthly column I wrote for the Journal Star with you. Thanks for your patience and grace as I take a little breather from (most of) my writing.

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Three weeks ago, the 33-year-old son of one of my father’s closest friends drowned while swimming in a small Massachusetts lake. According to reports, he jumped from a boat into the water and never resurfaced.

My parents were sleeping when the phone rang. At that point the body had not yet been found and recovered from the lake. My father’s friend, Don, and his wife had learned their son was missing and presumed dead when a police officer had knocked on their door that night. My dad was one of the first people they called.

After he got off the phone, my father dressed quickly and drove the short distance to his friend’s house, where he spent some time with him and his wife. The next morning my dad was at the lake with Don and his wife when the divers resumed their search. He was there again the following morning when the divers finally recovered the body.

Later, in a phone conversation with my dad, I asked him what he had done during all the hours he had spent at the lake. “Nothing really,” he said. “I was just there.”

My dad said most of the time he had sat on a bench a little ways away from the beach where the search and recovery operation was centered. Don came and sat next to him from time to time. They would talk a little bit, and then Don would get up from the bench to be with his wife or another one of his family members.

“He said he wanted me there, so I was there,” my dad said.

Often our inclination is to run in the opposite direction in the face of another person’s suffering or grief. We tend to make excuses for ourselves — “She would rather be alone…The family needs privacy right now…There’s nothing I can really do to help…” – because we are uncomfortable and afraid. When we do summon the courage to show up, we often feel compelled to do something or say something we think, or at least hope, will be helpful.

This isn’t to say that making a meal or mowing the lawn or offering prayers and condolences aren’t valuable things to do when someone you know is suffering. They are. But sometimes, especially in the earliest stages when grief is still registering as shock, simply coming alongside someone who is suffering when everyone else is turning away can be a precious gift.

Baptist minister Reverend Jeffrey Brown calls this practice of showing up the “ministry of presence.” “I find that among the most effective ways to do ministry is to shut up and just be there,” Brown said.

My dad and Don have known each other for 46 years. They both worked as guidance counselors at the same small high school in Connecticut. They are close in the way men of their generation often are. They attend one another’s milestone events, like retirement parties and children’s weddings. They go out to dinner together with their wives, or visit over beers on the back deck. They don’t often talk a lot about personal stuff. Yet my dad was the one Don called when tragedy struck. And my dad showed up.

Sitting on a lakeside bench in the background hour after hour doesn’t sound like much of an offering in the face of unimaginable tragedy. But in his small, unobtrusive way, my dad practiced the ministry of presence. He was there for his friend, and his presence — simple, quiet, and unadorned — was a gift.

 

Filed Under: community, grief Tagged With: grief, what to do when someone is grieving

When Grief Gives Way to Joy {#FightBackWithJoy}

January 19, 2015 By Michelle

FightBackforJoy2

Peals of laughter and a chorus of squeals drifted from the living room into the kitchen, where I stood with my hands in a sink full of dirty dishes.  Heaviness rested on my chest like an x-ray apron as I methodically rinsed each plate and bent to place it in the dishwasher. Even the most mundane chores felt laborious when grief draped the house like an impenetrable fog.

“How is he even able to laugh? How can he be having fun?” I wondered as I leaned against the doorframe, damp dishtowel in my hands, and watched my husband roughhouse with our two young boys. They were engaged in an epic tickle war, and all three of them screamed with laughter until they fell, spent, onto the carpet in a heap.

My husband’s father was dying of lung cancer, yet in the midst of fear and grief, Brad managed to embrace joy. I didn’t understand how such joy was possible. I couldn’t escape the darkness of grief that enveloped me.

Weeks later, long after the memorial service had passed, I asked my husband how he’d been able to summon such joy during such an awful time. His answer surprised me. Sometimes he’d faked it, he admitted, going through the motions for the kids’ sake. But other times the tickling and giggling had somehow birthed a genuine joy – a respite from the pervasive grief. Playing with the kids had wedged open a crack. And just for a moment, a shaft of light had sliced through the darkness.

“At its core, joy emanates from the abiding sense of God’s fierce love for us,” Margaret Feinberg writes in her latest book, Fight Back With Joy. “Practicing defiant joy is the declaration that the darkness does not and will not win. When we fight back with joy, we embrace a reality that is more real than what we’re enduring.”

Margaret did not write these words flippantly. She wrote them from the heart in the midst of her own suffering as she walked through breast cancer, surgery and chemotherapy. Margaret Feinberg doesn’t write about fighting for joy in the abstract. She writes it real, because she lived it, is living it.

FightBackforJoy1

It’s not always easy to remember that God is with us in these difficult times. Often we are so consumed by our own devastation that we forget God is right there with us, even in the most awful moments. These unexpected flashes of joy, these moments when we allow ourselves to succumb to frivolity and silliness are a reminder that God is present, shining his love and compassion upon us.

I refused to allow myself joy during that terribly difficult time because I felt guilty, as if my happiness would disrespect or perhaps even betray my father-in-law.

But observing Brad and my kids laugh helped me understand that joy can accompany grief. These two powerful emotions needn’t be kept separate, but instead can flow seamlessly, one into the other.

I see now that God’s presence is often experienced more vividly and palpably in these moments when heaven and earth meld. I believe when we feel joy, even as the weight of grief hangs heavy, we experience the nearness of a God who is with us wherever we go.

fightbackforjoy3This post is part of Margaret Feinberg’s Blog Party for her brand-new book and Bible study, Fight Back With Joy. To join the celebration (and learn more), click here. To read more about the book or to purchase a copy, click here.

To hear more about the book from Margaret herself, watch this short video trailer for Fight Back with Joy: {readers who are reading this post in email, click here and scroll down to the bottom of the blog post to watch the video.}:

Fight Back With Joy 6-Session DVD Bible Study Promo Video from Margaret Feinberg on Vimeo.

Filed Under: grief, joy Tagged With: #FightBackWithJoy, grief and joy, Margaret Feinberg

When You’re Having an Ugly Christmas

December 22, 2014 By Michelle

I wrote this post last year and ran it around this time, and I decided to re-run it this year because I suspect some of you might be struggling through an ugly Christmas. Friends, if you are grieving, weary, burdened, anxious, frustrated, disappointed or just plain out of sorts, this post is for you. If you can only focus on one thing this season, make it this: God didn’t come for the pretty and the perfect, the sparkly, glittery, arranged-just-so. He came to us as a human being so he could be with us, as close to us as humanly possible, which includes, of course, all of our ugly, unseemly, unsavory parts. Our anger. Our bitterness. Our disappointment. Our grief. Our loneliness. Our despair. Our ugly Christmases. God came to be with us in that.

treewithtext

I told Brad the other night at dinner that this is the first year in several that I have actual felt even a bit of Christmas joy. Three years ago we mourned the loss of my mother-in-law, Janice, who had died in September. The following year my father-in-law Jon was diagnosed with terminal cancer two weeks before Christmas. Last year was our first Christmas without him. Let me say point-blank: Christmas sucked for three years straight.

It’s so easy to get ensnared in the glittery, caroling, iced cookie expectations of Christmas, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong — those parts of Christmas are beautiful and holy and joyful. But when they are missing, overshadowed by illness, death, grief, depression, fear, loss, anger, ugliness, fill-in-the-blank-with-your-burden, we feel ripped off. Gypped.

We feel like Christmas with all its magic and miracles and jingling joy has passed us right by like a cherry-red sleigh swishing through freshly fallen snow.

We feel like Christmas has left us standing on the curb, spattered in dirt-blackened slush.

But listen for a second, friends. I know this, because I’ve been there, up to my eyeballs in grief and anger, bitterness and disappointment right in the middle of the Christmas season. And I can say this because I know it’s true: Christmas is the ugly, too.

Dare I even say it? The ugly, the underbelly, the dirt-encrusted slush? That is the real Christmas.

Our God was born human in a barn. And though we like to pretty it all up with our hand-carved, hand-painted nativity scenes arranged just so on our coffee tables and mantels and hearths, that barn our God was born in, the real Bethlehem-barn, was ugly.

There was no Christmas tree strung with tiny white lights in that barn. No “Silver Bells” and “Winter Wonderland” piped in over the sound system. No gifts wrapped in foil, no perfectly iced sugar cookies, no dainty hors d’oeuvres arranged on special holiday serving dishes and no sparkling punch poured into delicate crystal glasses.

No, that barn was dirty, with dung-caked floors and dim, dusty light and the clattering and thumping of hooves. That barn didn’t smell like a French Vanilla Yankee Candle; it stunk like filthy animals and rank, unwashed bodies. There was blood on the floor of that barn, and amniotic fluid and afterbirth. The mother who gave birth in that barn was a young, unwed woman. The father was a humble carpenter. And the visitors were motley crew of shepherds who’d come straight from the pasture.

It was not pretty and perfect in that barn, and you want to know why? Because God didn’t come for the pretty and the perfect, the sparkly, glittery, arranged-just-so. He came to us as a human being so he could be with us, as close to us as humanly possible, which includes, of course, all of our ugly, unseemly, unsavory parts. Our anger. Our bitterness. Our disappointment. Our grief. Our loneliness. Our despair. Our ugly Christmases.

God came to be with us in that.

Truthfully, these last three years I couldn’t really see that God was with me in the ugly Christmas. I was so angry, so sad, so worn out, I could barely leave the house – the mere thought of twinkly lights and glittery decorations and cheerful music filled me with too much despair. But I see it now. I see now that he was there, right there with me in the muck, disappointment and hopelessness. He was there.

And so I need to tell you this today. If you’re in that place, if you’re in the ugly Christmas right now, know this: you might not see him, you might not feel him, you may be downright hating Christmas right now, but God is with you. He was born in a barn, amid filth and stink, especially for you, especially for this exact moment, especially for the ugly Christmas.

 

Filed Under: grief Tagged With: Christmas and Grief, When Christmas Falls Short of Expectations

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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