Category: Grief
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the inconvenience of our sadness
The Inconvenience of Our Sadness Do you ever feel so tired, you just weep and weep and weep? Weeping sounds so beautiful, like a willow— elegant sadness stretching out perpetually, showing off her delicate leaves draped on bending branches. My sadness never feels that lovely. It feels ugly, self-indulgent, and inconvenient— an obstacle to all…
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transformation
Image text: It can be hard to empathize with someone else’s story when you’re drowning in your own. If you’re in survival mode, don’t let shame be piled on top of it all. Let go of the need to perform and instead, try to allow. The lessons of transformation will present themselves. Sometimes the best…
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Jesus wept. We can, too.
We don’t have to buy into the cultural lie that sadness, anger, and grief are unholy indicators of a lack of faith. In fact, I would argue that a faith that hasn’t wrestled with doubt and grief is in danger of becoming, or has become, atrophied. In scripture, we see a Jesus who wept, got…
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communal grief & communal joy
**Please note: This IS a political post, because politics affect people. This post is for my friends in the margins and the privileged folks who are standing with them. To anyone else, I’m open to civil discussions offline.** When I began listening to people in the margins, one of the most important refrains I heard…
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be gentle with you.
2020 is so tough, but sometimes you can catch glimpses of the sun peeking through. Every which way I turn, I see more suffering… illness, death, racial injustice, devastating loss due to wildfires and natural disasters, poverty, abuse, and regular, everyday losses that seem like luxuries to grieve given everything happening in the world. Years…
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ask for what you need
I used to think that I needed to shrink myself smaller and smaller so my needs would disappear. Some years ago, I was talking to my therapist about the intense anxiety I felt as I sat for over an hour in a doctor’s waiting room not long after I had had a miscarriage. The doctor’s…
Lindsay L. O'Connor 