Too Close The Same

“If anyone belongs to Christ, there is a new creation.  The old things have gone; everything is made new.”   2 Corinthians 5:17

In my recent updates of my condo, I chose paint colors based on the name of the paint and how it would accentuate my furnishings.  Recently, I was looking through pictures of a previous house, and I realized I had chosen close to the same colors of paint.  It was familiar and comfortable before and it continues to be what fits my style.  When I went shopping, I tend to purchase clothes at the same stores and about the same color and style. 

When I began the grief journey, I found it easier to go to the grocery store and buy the same items each week and eat the same meals over the first several months.  It was mostly healthy foods.  I did not have to make any decisions.  It was familiar and I was fine eating the same thing each day.  I found myself trying to keep the same routine and lifestyle.  It kept me close to the same life I had known.  It was familiar.  The familiarity made it feel like my husband was still with me and I was attempting to live in the past in my present life.  Our grief desires to stay close to the same life we have always known.  This only leads to even more emptiness and pain because no matter how much we try; nothing is the same.

As I have journeyed further down the road, I have come to realize that trying to keep my life too close to the past brings so much more pain because I can never recreate it.  I have learned that different is not bad, it is just different.  My life will never be the same, and I have come to accept that fact.  I also have come to realize I do not want to live close to the same.  When I experience something too close to the same as it was with y husband, it feels like I am betraying the relationship I had.  He has enhanced my life and helped me become who I am now, but the path with him is complete.  I am no longer walking that same path.  I have turned onto another path on this journey of life.

In developing new relationships on this journey, you cannot take one out and insert another and do the same thing.  It will not work.  It will cause frustration, pain, and heartache, and you will feel uneasy and uncomfortable.  Feelings of jealousy may also enter the situation.  It is creating a new and different life and going down a different path.

When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we become a new creation as Paul states in 2 Corinthians.  The old has past, and we are made new.  We cannot stay too close to the same or we will revert back to our old way of life and Jesus will no longer be the center of our lives. 

Therefore, on our grief journey as we attempt to live into life, we need to try new experiences, adventures, and relationships.  When it is too close to the same we compare, feel like we are leaving out our loved one, and we place guilt on ourselves for even trying a new life.  Give yourself permission to be a new creation.  You will never be the same so why not take a step into the different and live a new life.  Your loved one is part of who you are.  God will walk beside you.  When you get too close the same, you will know that you want to treasure that experience and not repeat it.  Take a step in a different direction and try living in today not the past.