People go to cemeteries

to grieve the loss of their loved ones.

But where do we go to grieve the heart-wrenching emotional losses in our lives?

There’s no section at the cemetery to pre-grieve your dying child. There’s no bench at the park designated for grieving a betrayal. There’s no back room at the coffee shop that hides the wailing for the life you thought you’d have.

Sometimes it feels like there’s no appropriate time or place to grieve these kinds of losses. Do we make an appointment with ourselves? Reserve space in our closet? Or do we just bring tissues for when tears start falling in the grocery check out lane?

When my kids were toddlers, we often went walking (I was walking, the kids were stroller-ing), on a walking trail near our home. The trail is .9 miles, not one mile, just .9 miles. (I think the math teachers secretly got together with the PE teachers to give us a two-fer, using our math skills while we exercise.)

But at the walking trail, the bugs are loud and the sun is hot. There are a few places of shade, but for the most part, past 8am, you bask in the heat of summer.

We had picnics there.

I also grieved my son’s diagnosis there.

Running that .9 miles over and over, I trained for my first half marathon in 2009.

I sobbed while I ran. I collapsed beside the path and pounded the dirt with my fists. I ran in the rain to punish my body because there was nothing to do and no one to blame.

The walking trail became my grieving place.

As time passed, I would grieve other hard things there.

I have friends who grieve in the shower, in the woods behind their house, or in the neighborhood playground when it’s empty. Some grieve at the beach or the lake or in the empty corner of the Target parking lot when they’ve run out for an errand.

I’ve learned a few things about grieving places. Do you have one?

A constant

Our grieving place is somewhere we can always go. Not so that we can feel the terrible pain of the last grief, but so that we can remember how we came out on the other side.

Maybe we’ve moved, so it’s not exactly the same park, the same beach, or the same parking lot, but it’s still ours. We know it and it knows us. It knows our deepest pain alongside our unquenchable belief that joy will come again.

Jesus meets us there.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Psalm 147:3.

Where do you go that releases the emotions you stuff down in the day to day?

More than grief

Our grieving place reminds us that life ebbs and flows, that there is grief, sorrow, anger, and even despair. But that sitting on the ground next to us, right next to where the tears fell, is the bud of a wildflower. And when we open our eyes, the sun shines, even if right now, we’d rather sit in the rain.

I am confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord.

Psalm 27:13-14.

Our grieving place doesn’t let us sit in the grief forever. No, it’s too beautiful for that. That’s why I think so many grieving places I hear about are outside – in nature, in beauty, in creation.

So if your grieving place is in the car, or the shower, might I challenge you to find one that speaks to your soul? Not that a hot coffee in a silent car, or a steaming shower without anyone screaming, “Mommy!” doesn’t give us all a little joy, but it’s so easy to isolate ourselves even more in man-made grieving places.

A place of reckoning

We might think the best grieving place is our own couch with our mom or best friend right beside us. Where they “sit with Job,” as it were.

There’s surely a time for that. And for the sisterly love that comes from empathy and support. But our grieving place is for us.

Our grieving place is where we, and we alone, face our deepest pain. We don’t sugar coat it or dress it up in lessons learned. [tweet_dis excerpt=”Our grieving place is where we, and we alone, face our deepest pain. We don’t sugar coat it or dress it up in lessons learned.”][/tweet_dis]

I’m known among my friends as a “bright sider” (I look for the bright side in everything) and it’s a quality that has served me well most of my life.

But when it comes to grief, and facing the reality of hard circumstances that turn our insides out, the bright side must wait.

We can’t truly grieve the loss if we don’t look at it square in the face. We must wrestle with the pain and not side step it for the “bright side.”

My son was on a wrestling team a few years ago and I was struck by how they begin each match. They plant their feet, stare each other down, and bring their arms up, hands open to grab, at the ready.

He always knew that a win was possible, and that it would make him happy, but first he had to wrestle. Win or lose, he learned something with every match.

When we square off with our grief, when we look it in the eyes, we acknowledge that it’s real and…that…it’s…hard.

We don’t minimize it. We don’t “figure it out.”

But unlike a wrestling match, there is no victory or surrender with grief. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s both. We surrender, and in the end, that brings us victory – and victory looks a lot like peace.

We let the grief change us.

In my own life, sometimes facing grief head on looks like a grief tower, or a grief list, or let’s be real, sometimes I just hit a heavy bag with a bat.

Where is your grieving place? How do you face grief head on? Or maybe, how do you realize you avoid it?

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Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.  – Psalm 55:22

God’s not done with you
Even with your broken heart and your wounds and your scars
God’s not done with you
Even when you’re lost and it’s hard and you’re falling apart