Stepping Into Life

“Don’t be afraid because I have saved you. I have called you by name, and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you…when you walk through fire, you will not be burned…” Isaiah 43:1-2

During my college years, I was learning skills to be an adult and function on my own and making my own decisions.  But when I went home for a weekend or a break, I reverted to my childhood ways with my parents.  To them, I was still their little girl, and I allowed my past to be my present.  At first, I resisted and wanted to tell them all I was learning and how independent I was becoming, but they just wanted me to be who they assumed I had always been.  As I matured, I learned to step back into their world, and then back into mine.  Throughout the life of my parents, I stepped in and out of that life.  Eventually I learned to just be me in both places.

In our grief, we tend to live at first in the past.  We desire our old life back and live in how life used to be.  We are afraid to begin to heal and not live in the intense grief.  We connect grief to our loved one.  If we are not grieving, we think we are forgetting our loved one.  So, we focus on the pictures, the cemetery, the possessions, and not wanting to change anything out of fear of losing our loved one again.  It feels more comfortable to step back and stay stuck in the memories of how life was with our loved one.

We go back to who we were in the past.  We step back in what was familiar.  So, we exist in the grief.  It is all we know.  We even trick our mind into believing life is the same, but in reality, life has dramatically changed.  We are different too.  We know it but have no clue how to take a step into a new and different life.  Just one step seems impossible alone.

When we step into the past but try to live in the present, we are overwhelmed with the intensity of the pull of grief and living.  It feels like if we stay only in the past memories and feelings and focus on our loved one, it will sustain us and give purpose to our lives.  It does for a while.  The love and memories are wonderful.  We reflect on how good life was with our loved one.  Then a yearning begins in our souls for more – more meaning, more purpose to life.  Because just living in the past and the grief creates an emptiness in our souls.  We just exist and go through the motions of life.  We have changed and the past self no longer exists.  We are existing in an empty shell of ourselves.  For when we step back into the past, we are unable to step back into our old selves.  That person no longer exists.  Grief has created a new person – a person no longer content to live completely in the memories of the past.

I have been observing a friend navigate stepping from the past into the present.  It has been a recognition of the completion of a relationship that influenced and help make the person into who he currently is.  But the relationship is complete – no adding to it.  The love will always remain.  Love never dies.  The love becomes a part of you not necessarily distinguishable as individual persons.  You give thanks for the love and the memories are stored forever within you.  But the past cannot be restored.  It is no longer giving life.   It begins to create an emptiness and unfulfillment.

You have passed through the water and fire of the past.  It has shaped you and defined you and left scars, but it can no longer give you life. God tells us in the book of Isaiah, He has saved us, and we are His.  He has brought us through the trials of life and calls us to step forward into life.  Grief will be a part of our lives while we are here on earth.  Grief though can mix with life.  Grief alone is existence.  Grief and steps forward is living.  We do not walk this journey alone.  God promises to walk beside us and take our hand.  No step is easy.  But each step forward is trying to navigate life and find meaning and purpose in this different life.  Take a step.