Tuesday was a difficult day.
I can’t explain what started it, I simply came home from running errands, sat down, and after a few moments, found myself crying.
Then I started writing in my journal and poured it all out.
Specifically, I wrote about how hard it was to be thankful.
I don’t find it hard to be thankful that mom is gone; I wrote, though it hurts, I am confident that God has a purpose for that. I am thankful that she is free from pain and suffering and I know she wouldn’t trade places if she had the chance. I know, no matter how much she loved me or her granddaughters, that she loves her Savior more.
But at times, I find it hard to be thankful for all the changes that losing her has brought.
As I revisited those thoughts Wednesday morning, my heart kept tugging me back to a verse I have been meditating on for a few weeks.
The heart knoweth his own bitterness; —Proverbs 14:10a
When I first noticed that, I scribbled in my margin— “you’re bitter and you know it.”
In Ephesians 4:30 we are instructed not to grieve the Holy Spirit. In the very next verse, Scripture lays out a laundry list of things that should be put away—and bitterness is at the top of that list.
And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:—Ephesians 4:30, 31
I don’t want to be bitter.I don’t want to grieve the Holy Spirit.But I know me.I know what upsets me. What secret thoughts I harbor. What frustrations I fight.
When I was caught up in the midst of my ‘moment’ Tuesday, I wrote, ‘part of me still wants to just sit down and cry. Pull the covers up over my head and be angry at the world and angry at everybody. There’s a fire that lights up inside of me when I think of how frustrated I am.’
But I know that response is the working of my flesh.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. —Galatians 5:19-21
The works of the flesh are...hatred...wrath, strife...
Those words are bundled together with more appalling sins such as ‘adultery, fornication, witchcraft, murders...’ and it can be easy to rush through the list and not put ourselves there.
But friend, I’m telling you. My flesh was there.
At its core, what I felt could be called hatred.
“Wrath” is extreme anger and yes, sometimes I get angry.
Not about the fact that my mom is gone, but with the profound shift that losing her made in my world.
The woman I am today doesn’t feel like the same woman I was two years ago. Before mom got sick. Before she died. Before any of this could have been foreseen.
You see, it wasn’t the big loss that was the most difficult.It’s all the tiny losses I still notice, months later.Not having her to talk to throughout my day.Not having her to share in the excitements, victories, or struggles that I and my girls experience.
Little things, that only my heart can feel.Invisible things, that no one else knows I carry.
Even though my husband is my best friend and has supported me more in the last 18 months than I ever dreamed possible—he cannot begin to put himself inside my heart and know exactly what I feel, no matter how hard I try to explain or describe it.
We can’t always put ourselves in someone else’s shoes.
I’m told that even siblings (of whom I have none) experience grief differently when they lose a parent.
Whatever loss or grief you feel, whatever frustration or difficulty you face—it is unique to you.
When I lost Rebekah and Rachel, I was younger. More immature.
When older women would tell me they, too, had experienced a miscarriage and that they ‘knew how I felt’—it wasn’t a comfort to me. I bristled against those words because this was no ‘miscarriage’—I was 23 weeks along. I was past viability (or so I thought). And this wasn’t just one baby, it was two.
You don’t know how I feel, I would think.
And I so desperately wanted someone to know how I felt.
I remember one older, matronly friend squeezing my hand and saying ‘no one knows just what you’re feeling but you.’ And in that moment, those felt like the coldest, most empty words I’d ever heard.
But she was right.
The heart knoweth his own bitterness.
But praise the Lord there is one who knows my heart.
When my heart is low, when I feel those works of the flesh begin stirring and threatening to overwhelm me...
No one understands! —I think—I’m all alone in this!
The sweet Holy Spirit brings ‘all things to [my] remembrance’ and speaks through His Word reminding me:
That Christ was acquainted with grief.That He was oppressed and afflicted.That He was forsaken.And that He can give peace and comfort like no one else can.
That little bud of the Holy Spirit begins to blossom in my heart and bids me to exchange my hurt and anger and frustration for love, joy and peace.
It may not be polite for me to admit that I struggle with this, but it should not be a surprise.
The Bible plainly says:
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.—Galatians 5:17
Paul wasn’t ashamed to admit that he struggled.
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing...For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do...For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind... —Romans 7:18-23, selected
Just because you’re saved doesn’t mean you won’t have difficulties.Your eternal soul is still walking around in this sinful flesh.Flesh that is still capable of doing all those evil works of Galatians 5:19.Flesh that must be crucified.
Walking in the Spirit is something I have to purpose in my heart to do.
It isn’t always easy.
My flesh usually doesn’t want to go down without a fight.
But I know it is the good and the right thing to do.
Tuesday my prayer was one of obedience.
Lord, I’m hurting. It feels good to cry. It feels good to sit with this frustration. I just want to wallow in it. But Lord, I know this is my flesh speaking. I know that’s not pleasing to You.Help me, Lord.Help me put this away.Fill me with your Holy Spirit.
It didn’t come immediately.
But I was able to stop crying. I was able to get up, move on, and press forward with the tasks of the day.
And this morning I can feel those fresh mercies.
There’s a glimmer of hope there that wasn’t there before.
My heart may know its own bitterness, but the verse doesn’t stop there.
The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.
Intermeddle is a strong word.
It means I have a joy in my heart that no one can steal, no one can hinder or interfere with.
There’s a peace in my heart that the world never gave,A peace it cannot take away;Tho’ the trials of life may surround like a cloud,I’ve a peace that has come there to stay!
Constantly abiding. He never leaves.
You may be the only one who knows how you feel, but as you choose obedience, especially on the difficult days, you are not walking alone.
