Time Heals Nothing

I typically know what the day will hold. For the most part, there is a routine to follow. Methodically I get up at 4:30 am to make my husband’s lunch for work. Around 6, I get the kids up and ready for school. I make my bed and get dressed. Wash dishes that may have found their way to the sink from the previous evening. Make my morning coffee…so on and so forth.

I mostly have the day planned out.

On this particular day, however, everything changed…again. 

We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.

Proverbs 16:9 NLT

My mother-in-law’s usually sweet, calm voice was tainted with weeping and apparent distress. Not genuinely wanting to hear the reply out of fear, I hastily asked anyway, “Mom, what happened? Mom, what is it?” I hear her shakey voice say her name. With my heart racing and panic setting in, I felt sick with unbelief. “No! No! No!”

“Yes…she’s gone.”

I can’t breathe. I can’t process it. I don’t have words.

How are we going to do this? Everyone feels the same way…But ultimately, you have to. You do it. Visitation, funeral, graveside…and then home. We all sit silent, still trying to make sense of it. But nothing does.

I’m in anguish because I loved her. But even more than for myself…I think about her mother, father, grandparents, siblings, sweet baby boy, and fiance’. My mind drifts back to the previous tragedy they suffered…and now I watch them travel down this familiar road again.

I can’t control the empathy I feel; I’m acquainted with grief.

No matter how many years have passed since the tragic death of my first husband, and no matter how hard I try not to let my mind go back to that place, it just somehow happens when death once again appears on my doorstep…and then the funeral.

As I sit among the people, a particular smell triggers my senses, contributing to the flashbacks and taking me to the most painful moments of my life. I close my eyes. The pain I felt, and the overwhelming grief briefly take my breath away. I swiftly open my eyes, rushing back to reality, catch my breath, and I remember…my whole body remembers.

My present tears are then mixed with the past. I look around and wonder if anyone else irrepressibly relives history… 

I have yet to find an emotional pain compared to grieving the loss of someone you loved. Death indescribably cuts deep… Your soul cries out with screams that seem to echo into time, and a piece of you is forever gone.

Today, as I ponder death’s pain, I go back to the beginning…all the way back…to the Garden.

 But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

Genesis 2:16-17 NLT

God created Adam and Eve to live…not die. Death came after creation. Sin brought it to us, it is the wage being paid, and death came with an inevitable sting. Albeit we were not designed to deal with the pangs of death…it goes against what we were created for.

And here we are, left with seemingly unbearable wounds. Time heals nothing…although healing takes time. And where does the healing come from if time spent doesn’t actually heal?

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26 ESV

Without Him, I would be in despair. The strength He gives is supernatural; it isn’t anything I can muster up within myself. If I only had me…I could not continue on gracefully. Addictions would consume me, and chains would bind me to death’s neverending sting.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:4 ESV

So I turn to Him, the One who comforts me. To the One who holds my heart in His nail-scarred hands. He does what cannot be done otherwise…what cannot be done naturally. He heals.

The reverberating silence when everyone is gone breaks with my weak whispers of praise to my God. Thank you, Jesus, for not leaving me in life’s most painful moments. You take me through it, sometimes carrying me if necessary. You are faithful.

My time spent will be with Him. My Healer.

I remember once again Your promises…this is truth.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Revelation 21:4 ESV

With each life end of a loved one, I eagerly look forward to the day when death is finished and its sting is quenched forever!