It has become very apparent to me lately that we are to process through our negative  feelings to get to the other side. If we take God with us, willing to face the fear that has kept us from removing the band-aid on a wound that never quite healed, He will not only completely heal it but make the scar something beautiful that will always remind you of His love and mercy and grace.You will only feel joy when you remember it afterward and love to tell the story.

I used to envy my family and friends who seemed to have so many occasions for celebrations. Wedding anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, graduations, it seemed like a never ending year full of reasons to have a party. Living by myself, especially after a string of seeming misfortunes, I wondered how I was to commemorate the markers of my life.

No one puts the date of their divorce on their calendar year after year, nor even tries to remember the date of the marriage it disolved. Sometimes I would go to put a date on a check toward the end of February and there would be a vague thought that there was something important about that date….it took longer and longer to remember as years went by. No one will be calling or sending a card any longer, and the link in your mind will begin to fade over time.

The date you bought your first home was a happy one, the date you lost it, not one you ever want to recall.The day you put your dog down, lost a dear friend to cancer, filed for bankruptcy…..nope, not on anyone’s calendar. How does one process through these  emotions when so few people know how to share them with you? Everyone knows how to party, but few really know how to help someone grieve.

I was told by two women in the last two days, one of the cruelest things someone ever said to them was to “just move on” before they were ready. If we have a friend we feel is stuck in a sad or mad emotion, the kindest thing we can do is to step into it with them and help them remember the pain and grieve through it. If we don’t acknowledge it happened, they may be stuck there for a very long time. The saddest part of that is that real joy cannot enter in as it should, because their pain sneaks in and takes up all the space.

Perhaps we should have a funeral once a year, maybe even at a church or house of worship, where we are invited to bring our hurt and painful feelings to a wake and burial service. Emotions can be elusive and pop out when we least expect them sometimes. Make note of them when you find one, so you can dig a bit deeper and try to uproot it’s hold on you. There needs to be a time and a place to ask God into those dark places and to heal our hearts, and sometimes we are afraid to go there alone.

After that we can celebrate the healing, as I have and do for so many things that have happened in my life. I ask you to look for those things that are the markers of your life, treating them not as gravestones, but as jewels, mined from the quarry of your heart, and now adorning your neck or wrist as anniversary gifts from God himself. Those are the pearls that celebrate His infinite love for His cherished ones.

And, as I have learned from my darling daughter-in-law, if no one is throwing a party for you, throw one for yourself! A healing party, now there’s an idea……

Isaiah 41:10  Fear not: for I am with you….