Happy Thanksgiving!
I am quite surprised and grateful to be able to give this greeting and mean it. The holiday season of gatherings, love, gifts, amazing food and laughter is upon us! We finally get a break from work and school, yes, but most importantly we get to be around loved ones, showing appreciation for them inadvertently, by our presence. Side note – We don’t get a break from “slaving” in the kitchen, making that cornbread, collard greens, candied yams, and every other dish Thanksgiving demands. Showing up by plane, trains, cars, or buses, means that there is a desired capacity to share sacred and safe spaces with our people. Although I know the reality is that, in those family spaces, there are mixed feelings and attitudes, unearthed strife, wars, and unforgiveness, it all creates heart-slicing dissonance between family and friends. Yup, all under one roof.
Under your roof may be the heartbreak and fullness of grief. Seeing that chair empty, or that house gone, because it represents your loved one who passed away and nothing can replace their hugs, laughter, conversations, and what their life meant to you, so you are finding it hard to be festive. Holiday seasons were my absolute favorite, but as time passes, like Job in the Bible, there seems to be a subtraction of the people we love and care for at gatherings:
- Some naturally because of old age
- Some from the violence of chronic neurological disease
- Some from diseases and illnesses like cancer
- Some from being separated in different countries
- Some because of this post 9/11 and Covid pandemic era
- Some from losses of pets
- Some by unemployment and effects of poverty
- Some from family brokenness and divorce
- Some by nature’s rage
- Some prematurely by gun violence, domestic violence, suicide, poor mental health and…you fill in the blanks.
It doesn’t matter what took our loved ones away, birthdays, and the holiday season jolts and rips our hearts again and again. Because of this immense grief, we grapple with the unfairness of loss. I know many of us feel that they were not supposed to die or be taken away from us the way they were taken. So during gatherings and festivities, my memories get caught in a rip current of emotions, pulling me away to drown me in undecipherable pain. It is exhausting and strips desire to be amongst people’s smiles and cheer.
How does life expect us to give thanks when we have to sit for hours in our oceans of grief, anxiety, and isolation. I am grappling with that today. You may be drowning in grief also and don’t think that there is an escape until it all ends on January 2nd. But I do believe that because we have permission and the capacity to coexist with multiple emotions without succumbing to the weight of the memories, there is a rainbow of relief waiting for us. Working through this is personal for everyone, so I don’t expect you to do what I do, but my desire is that my thoughts may give you some ideas on how to function through the holidays.
I was reminded of the story of the ten lepers who Jesus healed. The story is found in the Bible in the book of Luke 17:11-19. The Biblical account says that
“Jesus on His way to Jerusalem, traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.”
He had taken this same shortcut when He went to meet the Samaritan woman at the well, but this trip highlighted a communal mission for Jesus. It hit my grief in a different way because of who was on the border and could not cross the border and also the boldness, compassion, and empathy of Jesus to go into the midst of the pain of the banished. Sounds familiar? In our societal climate, today the word border is a trigger that conjures up emotions from distance to fear. So the fact that there were borders separating classes, races from the poorest, diseased, and ailments, gives me a sense of hope because I know that in our experiences, Jesus understands and is with us no matter what side of the border we live…Jesus crossed borders too.
I am sure you are asking why and what do borders have to do with my suffering. This first part of the story tells us that Jesus had no problem walking where borders are. He did that multiple times, crossing over to the forbidden Samaria. But this barrier was different. This barrier functioned as a place where other barriers of race, status, religion and demographics were taken down. The story tells us that on this border were lepers from a mixture of race, status, religion, and demographics. This disease is ancient and modern. Embrace a Village organization shares these statistics:
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Leprosy is still active today, with nearly a quarter of a million people affected by it.
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Nearly 60% of the cases in the world are in India, and in that culture, if you have leprosy, your village ostracizes you and your entire family.
It is not only a contagious, disfiguring, and deadly disease, leprosy births grief from the effects on the victim and by the separation of families. It creates a societal group of sufferers but until they are healed or die, they grief from the death of the family unit and their future.
Isn’t this a familiar picture? Pain is Pain is Pain is Pain! Those who suffer from this disease experience many of the same pains and emotions which those who grieve from loss. The suffering of leprosy cripples the normal life of its victims. It caused isolation from family and friends but it also created a new community of empathizers. This disease called for banishment. Grief does that also. It is crippling and produces a kind of banishment because pain, adversity, crisis and loss separates you from normalcy. Those who grieve create a new way to exist in life just. Examples are people who have lost a child, an organ or a limb, they have to live a new normal life and find comfort with others in the same situation, no matter what their backgrounds were. Crisis and suffering breaks down borders!
Another part of this story which struck me was although Jesus showed intentionality to walk where suffering lives, the Bible says that He saw them;
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. Luke 17:14
Do you know the feeling of someone not just seeing you but seeing through you? Have you ever had someone not just see how you are doing, but perceive and deduce what is happening behind our masks of smiles, I’m OKs, or o
ur silence? Has anyone looked past your race, sex, or income level to see who you are, to see your heart? Has anyone refrained from judging you until they intricately and intrinsically knew you? I have gotten to understand that God sees me and through me.
- As I am losing my hair from the treatments, meds and trauma, I may not see each strand which falls but Ecclesiastes 4:10 tells me that God counts them all.
- He sees my brokenness and touches my wounds, healing them, because He can see every cell which hurts. Psalm 147:3
- When, because of my trauma, it is difficult to have healthy boundaries in relationships, and emotional regulation in order for my family to feel safe around me, I am hopeful for healing because God promised that He will heal me in Jeremiah 17:14. “Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.
- When my anxiety and PTSD is off the charts and others including myself can’t put words to feelings Psalm 139:23 reminds me that God searches every part of my heart and knows my anxiety.
- When guilt, shame, and regret engulf me, God promises me in Psalm 34:5, that if I keep my focus on Him continually giving Him those things, He will give me joy again, and he will engulf my pain.
- When I am in a private space and let out the ugly cry which no one, not even me, sees from blinding tears. When those tears are a result of a multiplicity of reasons, God in Psalm 56:8 tells me that He sees everything about me and He handles me so gently that He collects my tears, never letting any fall away into insignificance.
- When my memories of abuse surface and I try to hide them or stop the maladaptive behaviors, because God has been with me since He thought to create me, Hebrews 4:13 and Psalm 139:16 reminds me that He is with me and sees every moment of my life! Nothing escapes the careful eye of God.
This picture of Jesus seeing me in every moment of my life and especially in the grieving space conjures intense emotions from me. If I had to settle in isolation because of my ailments, sufferings and grief, I know that even though family, friends or the normalcy of society does or can not see the tiniest or inconsequential reasons for my grief, Jesus Sees and Knows the Mundane Parts of My Life!
I can understand the faith and gratitude of the one immigrant leper amongst the 9 other lepers who were Jews. Although the disease broke down their cultural barriers placing them in one group, when healed, the Jews demonstrated their cultural privilege and ungratefulness for their miracle. Their skin was healed, their grief ended, their pain disappeared, they took the healing for their bodies but not the healing for their spiritual hypocrisy. They had faith and accepted the healing but still rejected and denied acknowledging and accepting the God who Healed them.
The Samaritan immigrant, whose value was considered less than that of a dog, also had faith for healing but at some point recognized that although they were healed together, the barrier and border separating them by class etc. was reinstated. He was healed back into the forbidden community. Already an outcast, his humility allowed him to acknowledge the one who stepped into his grief and gave him freedom. His faith and gratitude healed him physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
There is so much more to this story I love but in this season of unbearable grief, these two moments remind me that if I have the littlest of faith and dig deep to find gratitude to my God who sees and walks with me in every season, a miracle occurs. The cloud of grief lifts allowing me to see light and clarity for a time. I praise God because He constantly gives me this miracle. God walks hand in hand with my grief and suffering and gives me moments when I can exhale, see beauty, sing a song, find joy, taste hope, speak life and praise Him. Faith and gratitude gives me the gift of praise. I can praise Him now, before, in the midst, and on the other side of my storms. God holding the diminutive and mundane parts of my life, is reason enough to trust Him, give Him thanks and Praise Him.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
