Grief makes you feel bipolar. It feels like I think having a legitimate care of bipolar or multiple personality disorder would feel.

Yesterday, despite the fact that it was the eleventh monthversary of his death, I felt somewhat hopeful and just thankful for what we did have when he was here: a kind of love that many people never experience in a lifetime and that it was so very easy to keep the covenant of “til death do us part.” The sun was shining outside. The weather was gorgeous and the temps in the 70’s. Nostalgia wasn’t making me sad yesterday.

This morning I was on my way to pick up my granddaughter and had my music on shuffle. An old song by Styx came on the radio: “Don’t Let It End.”

“What can I do
Pictures of you still make me cry;
Trying to live without your love,
It’s so hard to do.
Some nights I’ll wake up,
I’ll look at your pillow
Hoping that I’ll see you there.
But I get up each day, not much to say
I’ve nowhere to go.
Loneliness fills me up inside
‘Cause I’m missing you…. Don’t let it end;
I’m begging you, don’t let it end this way.”

Yes, I know this song is an obscure piece of music history. The lyrics are, in actuality, about two people who broke up and he’s begging her to try again, to get back together. This morning, though, this part tried to pull me back toward the abyss that is grief. It doesn’t help that today is rainy with thunder and lightning. A day with very little light.

This is a perfect example of what grief does to people. One minute you’re fine. You think you’re figuring it out. Thinking you are figuring out how to keep living makes you feel a little bit manic, like you finally cracked the code to a lock you’ve been trying to remember the combination for forever. You get a dopamine hit from what feels like an almost impossible success.

Drastically and suddenly, with no warning, reasonable cause, or explanation, something causes your foot to slip from the tightrope and before you know it you’re hanging from a thin line by your fingertips while the wind is blowing, rain makes the rope slick, and you look down to see a bottomless pit. Except there is probably a bottom down there somewhere and it wouldn’t be pretty to hit it…again. The “bipolar” feeling hits again. “I was just okay; what happened???”

The thing is, I have choices when this occurs. Choice #1: continue listening, dig deep to really feel the words, and end up so deep in the hole that it’s hard to find a foothold to climb back out. Choice #2: change the station.

Here are a few verses to consider:

“The eye is the light of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. . . .” (Matt.6:22-23)

This passage reminds me to pay attention to what I put into my mind through my vision. Be careful what I watch on TV or read in books, for example. If my vision starts to stray to something unsavory (from a spiritual perspective,) I should change my view by altering my perspective or averting my eyes elsewhere.

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” (Isaiah 26:3)

This verse reminds me that I will find peace if I change my thought process and aim toward spiritual things (whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Phil. 4:8)

More than anything you guard, protect your mind, for life flows from it. (Prov.4:23)

I have to guard what is allowed to infiltrate my thoughts; my life is influenced by what I allow.

“My son, pay attention to what I say; listen carefully to my words. Don’t lose sight of them; let them penetrate deep into your heart. For they bring life to those who find them and healing to their whole body.” (Prov 4:20-21)

Finally, my ears are a direct line to my heart. Music has always told me this because it has the power to elicit deep emotional responses. The Bible says that the Word of God in one’s ears brings life to those who find them and will heal their whole body.

This morning, I changed the station – literally and figuratively. I chose to pick a different playlist, and the song that played first on that station was “Healed” by Nichole Nordeman. This song sounds pretty somber, too, but the words are life-giving because they remind us of who we are, even in adversity; we exist but are incomplete until He reaches our hearts.

“We stutter and we stammer til You say us,
A symphony of chaos til You play us.
Phrases on the pages of unknown
Til You read us into poetry and prose.

We are kept and we are captive til You free us,
Vaguely unimagined til You dream us,
Aimlessly unguided til You lead us home.

By Your voice, we speak.
By Your strength, no longer weak.
We are no longer weak.

By Your wounds we are healed…

Passed over and passed by until You claim us.
Orphaned and abandoned til You name us.
Hidden undisclosed til You expose our hearts.

By Your death we live.
It is by Your gift that we might give.”

Today, my path was redirected because I changed my destination. Understand, though, that this isn’t something that is easy to do at all in early grief. There was definitely a time when I felt altogether incapable of redirecting my thoughts to anything but loss. And that is okay because it was part of processing the reality of the loss I have experienced. Even now, there are days I will still dig deep into the sadness and sit in it for awhile because something inside me needs to acknowledge my husband’s absence and the effect it has had, is having, and will always have on my life. Then, once I have had an opportunity to acknowledge those feelings, I’ve learned that if I change tracks to being thankful for the time we did have to spend together and for the beauty of our relationship while he was here, I am slowly and gently filled with peace. It all comes down to me being the boss of my thoughts and remembering that this life on Earth is merely one star in a sky of endless ones; it is the puréed spinach at the beginning of a long life of steak and baked potatoes, fresh bakery pastries, and millions of other delectably delicious delicacies. It gets infinitely better after this part that we’re slogging our way through.

If you’re grieving, know that it is okay if you’re not at this place yet, where you can take control of where your thoughts take you. I really think we need to go through the place where grief completely takes over. It sucks, but I think it’s necessary as our brains try to wrap around what happened and learn to grow our lives around it. If we shove those thought and feelings away in the beginning, if we just decide not to deal with them, they do not go away. We’re only hiding them so that they can explode later. It is not possible to ever eliminate them but allowing yourself to feel them takes away some of their power later on. If you’re not there yet, accept this hope that it does become easier to manage eventually. For me, right now it’s intermittently; sometimes it still rears its ugly head and tries to take me out but I seem to be able to find my way out of the pit a little more quickly after all the practice I’ve had climbing up.

The way God works, once you have experience hiking your way through dense and unexplored terrain, you’ll make a great trail guide for others who are trying to follow the same path behind you. You’re struggling now but one day you may be someone’s lighthouse on stormy seas. It’s a job you never wanted but someone will be grateful for you. ♥️