After my post last week about my own healing which came rather quietly, I had someone reach out and ask what healing has looked like for me. I appreciated the question. It provided the opportunity for some introspection; what does it mean to actually heal after loss?
It’s challenging to consider because healing doesn’t always feel or look like healing. One can both be in the process of healing while the pain still endures. Sorrow often persists even while healing is happening. Healing cannot be measured by the absence of sadness. There is also no finish line, no end, at least on this side of eternity, so it can often feel like healing is not happening because the road ahead always looms. The metric of healing is not linear or really measurable, but simply because it’s difficult to identify does not mean it’s not happening.
While I know each person’s healing will look different, here are eight different ways I have been able to measure that healing is happening, even when there is no metric:
1. Healing has come in a deeper assurance of God’s character
It would be easy to become disenchanted with who God is after losing a child. I have heard of many who have walked away, angry that he was not as loving or kind as they thought; or in the very least, his loving kindness was not shown in the way they hoped. I get it. I have struggled through some of the same disappointments and sorrows on this journey after loss.
A piece of healing for me has looked like letting go of how I wanted God to respond and growing in a deeper understanding of who he has proclaimed to be, despite my hopes and expectations. I had expectations of how I thought God would act based on who he was and I have had to learn, in many ways, to surrender those expectations and trust his character is true, even in the times it doesn’t feel true. A piece of healing for me has been the ability to more deeply rest in the mystery of God.
2. Healing has come in understanding I’ve changed
One piece of loss I did not understand was how much it changes a person. I used to be a high capacity, driven person. I used to have boundless energy to attack each day with confidence. My mind used to feel sharp with a keen attention to detail. Now, my capacity is significantly less than it once was. I get easily exhausted or overwhelmed with things that used to feel easy and life-giving. I also have far less energy and confidence in new situations.
As I heal, I recognize there are some pieces of me that have returned with time and there are parts of me that did not return; parts that seemed to have died with my son. At times, it’s been hard to let go of who I used to be. Part of healing has been learning to accept how much I have changed. I’m a different person from who I was before. Healing has been a process of both letting go of who I used to be and learning to embrace who God is shaping me to be through this loss.
3. Healing has come in a deeper understanding of surrender
I recently had a friend who said that for her, healing has helped her understand that her children were never hers in the first place; they were a gift from God to steward for the time he allotted. I resonated deeply with her heart.
I had hopes and expectations of what parenting would look like; how my days as a mom would play out. Although it still hurts deeply, a piece of healing has meant surrendering those expectations, even though I still don’t understand what God is doing through this loss. My children are a gift from God that I get the great privilege of stewarding for a season. They were never mine to keep. Healing has helped me understand this with more clarity.
4. Healing has come in a changed perspective
A piece of healing has looked like learning to surrender what I thought life would look like. It has involved learning to give up hopes and expectations, causing me to long for eternity in a way I never had before. It’s forced me to live with a much deeper realization that this world is not my home.
Healing has involved weakening my hold on this world and deeply understanding that I was made for eternity. In many ways, healing has caused me to have a deeper longing for heaven; something that should have always been present, but had easily been shoved to the back of my mind when life was sweet and all I could see was living for the present moment. My perspective has shifted and I think a large piece of healing has caused me to look toward eternity with much greater anticipation and hope than I ever had before.
5. Healing has come in learning to hold grief and joy simultaneously
I used to think healing meant sadness would be eliminated. Now I realize that healing is not the elimination of loss and sadness, rather it’s learning to hold the sadness next to the joy that life still has. It’s learning to hold grief in one hand and gratitude in the other. It’s learning to walk again, always with a limp, but also to appreciate that I am moving forward. It’s recognizing that the pain will likely never fully resolve this side of eternity, and in some ways, healing has looked like being okay with this lack of resolve. Were the pain ever fully resolved this side of heaven, I think I might want to hold on to a small piece of it simply as a connection to my son.
6. Healing has come in learning to lament
I used to assume that healing meant that the difficult emotions and thoughts I had about God – confusion, sadness, hurt – would resolve. I thought healing would mean I had a measure of understanding or clarity. I realize now, however, that healing does not mean these things resolve, but rather, the mystery of the unknowable is easier to sit with.
Confusion with God’s plans feels less painful than it once did. It still hurts. I still do not like that God’s plan meant losing my son; I’m not sure I ever will like this piece. Yet healing has come in knowing that I can both express the sorrow, disappointment, and grief I have with God’s plan yet also trust him, despite the pain that remains. Healing has looked like growing in honest lament before the Lord.
7. Healing has come in a deeper assurance of God’s faithfulness
I used to have a lot of fear that something would come along that would cause me, like Job’s wife, to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9). I have heard stories of those who seemed faithful and turned from God in moments of crisis or when extreme testing came.
Losing my son has, in many ways, given me a deeper assurance of God’s faithfulness and healing has meant that I have grown in confidence of God’s promise and ability to hold those who are his. Facing my worst fear and still having a heart that is tender toward the Lord is a testimony of God’s holding power, faithfulness, and that God, “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3).
8. Healing has come in learning to find God in quiet endurance.
There are some pains and sorrows which have no end; there is no finish line or clear point of resolve. Restoration does not look like God returning what was lost or restoring what has died; at least not here on earth. For me, healing has meant finding God in quiet endurance; persisting through hardship and holding to his promises, even when they have not felt true.
Healing has meant a journey of faith that has been full of contradictions and emotional conflict. Holding to a God who is love, yet not feeling that love in a moment of extreme pain. Believing God at his word, yet feeling confused about how his word is true. It has required determination yet also surrender. It has been a journey full of paradoxes in which God has been shown to be faithful, even as he has slayed me.
What would you add? What has healing looked like for you as you endure your own sorrow and painful journey?
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