Grief and Resurrection

Resurrect

: to bring back to life

: to cause something that has ended or been forgotten or lost to exist again, to be used again

English Learners Dictionary

In grief, I am certain I am not alone in hoping for the resurrection of a loved one or loss. I have thought frequently about what it would have taken to bring my marriage and dreams of old back to life. In addition, it hasn’t been uncommon that I have thought that having my grandparents and loved ones back would somehow ease my current grief.

But as I hiked through the desert landscape and gazed upon a heap of what looked like dirt on a rock, it wasn’t my loved ones or my marriage that I thought of, but instead myself. The guide was teaching us that this “Resurrection Moss” would turn green again with generous water. I doubted it, and yet also hoped for it. It seemed as if the validity of this statement could confirm that I too could feel more alive. I wanted it to be miraculous- the green to pop in amazing flourish. It wasn’t. In fact, it took A LOT of water to my dry mouth’s discontent. It also wasn’t permanent. For this resurrection to occur, it would require water over and over, and in the lack of water it would go back to a dehydrated black moss resembling dirt. Where was the miracle in that?

So there I gazed, thinking of myself and wondering if I too would be lacking a miracle. It is true, as I look at what is in front of me I have not seen one event take my grief away or give me back that which is gone. In that sense, a miracle has evaded me. But what if part of the miracle in the resurrection moss isn’t that it appears alive after getting the resources it needs, but instead that it keeps living despite the harsh climate and lack of resources? Then in us too a miracle is seen in our resilience. When grieving and cut off from that which we long for, we are finding ways to put one foot in front of the other. We are miraculous. But we are also just surviving if we don’t have a source of life.

In the kindness of others I have found temporary resurrection and it is in fact life giving. Through others reaching out, being patient with me, providing for my physical and emotional needs, I am getting the water in a desert. I even see glimpses of myself coming back and even growing. But when I face a drought and I don’t see signs of growth, the fears and insecurities settle. Death doesn’t just seem around me, but in me. Where then is the resurrection?

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

2 Cor 4:16-18

By this, although in the temporal I am requiring renewal day after day, my eternity is of certain flourishing life in Him. Despite the seasons where I will vary from reflecting waste to well-being, Jesus’ resurrection is our resurrection and is eternity giving.

“Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die…

John 11:25-26

May we not lose heart Dear Ones, in the unseen our miracle and resurrection are not temporal.