In preparation to publish my second book Write Your Way Through Change - a 21-Day Devotional Journal for Grief & Major Life Transitions, I want to share the reason why I wrote my first book.
My first book, Hello Nobody is what came from my desire to tell my own story of grief and life transition. I wanted someone to know that if I can make it through, they could too.
The hardest trials actually uncovered my faith. I was raised in a Christian home, brought up in church, youth group and even attended a Christian College. I believed God was good and had good plans for me. I asked Him into my heart and life, in a personal way when I was 16 years old. I knew He was real.
Little did I know how important the framework my faith would be when everything in my life came crashing down, all parts were crumbling around my feet. At some point, I knew I had to step over the smoldering pieces and figure out who I was now and accept life as it had turned out.
That’s a long, hard journey, one I’m still walking.
Isolation
Grief is isolating, no matter what's causing your heartache. It’s easy to pull inside and not want to come out. I felt like that.
I think it’s a way of protecting yourself from more hurt. For a while after the initial blow, it serves a purpose, to draw back and regroup. No one can tell another person the time frame for this, but if it goes on for too long, it could cause trouble. We must deal with grief, no matter how hard it is to look at.
The only way around grief and isolation is through it. It’s dark and lonely and no one else can tell you how to feel. Grief is uncharted waters, and it’s easy to get lost and to lose yourself.
I’ve heard it said, Grief is like falling in love. You don’t know what it is until it happens to you but once you’ve experienced it, you know it and you can’t explain it.
Besides feeling isolated and pulled away from what is familiar, grief demands change.
Your world is changed, your heart is changed, your life as you knew it is changed and for the most part the only thing you can do about it is to make something new from it.
Death of a loved one, a divorce, loss of a job, cancer or other illness, recovering from a bad accident, retirement, an empty nest, even aging, or realizing the dream you had will never happen, are all examples of some of the heavy change that gets dropped on
Grief has many faces. It’s really all around us. If you’ve not experienced it yet…you will. It’s part of life.
My story is no harsher than yours. I’ve had my share of loss, but you have too.
A thing to remember is to let people in your circle to come around you.
I owned a yarn shop and when my husband was sick with cancer and dying. I surrounded myself with a community of friends and customers, who helped hold me up. When he finally lost his battle, the shop was a soft, familiar place to land.
It's remarkable how other people, can make a big difference in our life when we’re blinded by suffering and hard circumstances.
Even the smallest gesture has an impact. I’ll never forget the morning we discovered my 9-year-old son had died in his sleep, family and friends rushed to our house.
But, the one thing I remember, is my sister in law who arrived and just started cleaning my bathrooms and putting dishes away in the kitchen.
All she said was, “Janet you’re going to have lots of company today, you need clean bathrooms.”
Another example of a small treasure was a few weeks later. We were all still in devastation shock and in no mood for Christmas festivities.
One afternoon about 2 weeks before Christmas, the doorbell rang. A friend walked in with a Christmas tree, lights, ornaments and said, “You need a tree.”
She didn’t want any help, and for the first time ever, we had a designer Christmas tree gift.
I call these treasures because, in our grief, these acts of service towards our family couldn’t be asked for. They were given out of love and made a big difference.
All that to say, if you have someone in your life that is going through a hard time of grief or suffering, don’t wait to be asked for help.
The smallest gesture can be a mountain of help.
What motivated me to write my book, was my story. You have a story to tell, someone needs to hear it.