Thoughts on Loss, Grief and Hope

Do you have hope? I hope so. I know that grief and loss and difficult days are very real things, but I believe that you can have hope, and I'm excited to talk about that today. Now, I know that you may be watching this video on any day in the future, but today, the day the video is being released, it is April Resurrection Sunday 2021, and as a believer, the rising of Jesus Christ Christ from the dead on the third day is the hope that we have that there's something to look forward to after everything on earth is done and over. But I would be amiss if I didn't admit that even though we have a hope, that there aren't still days where grief, loss, and difficulty is real. And we've had, I've had a difficult year. And today I just want to share some thoughts about how to get through hardship and what I've learned about passing through hardship in the last few years of my life. I hope that you can identify. I hope that my sharing and my honesty and my transparency is helpful, and I hope that at the end of this video you have hope to continue on. So many of you probably already know that my mom passed away in December of 2019, December 30th to be exact. So we started out 2020, funeralizing her, burying her, and then spent the year, uh, not long after that going into high gear because COVID is a whole thing. And because my family is a ministry family, um, that did not mean slowing down and making this wide open space to grieve. It meant that there was ministry to be done and pivots to make and shifts to engage in because the ministry at our church was not already live or online every Sunday. So we were engaged and involved in that, which frankly was good, kept us busy, kept us working on something. Um, but I will say that it didn't stop us, of course, from experiencing loss. I think we've all done a pretty good job of making space for it. Maybe not perfect, maybe not the way it would have happened otherwise, but I do think we were intentional. We just had to make room for it. Because in addition to burying my mom, and before COVID happened, Priscilla had surgery where she had a part of her lung removed, my sister Priscilla Shire. So we just went from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next. And it was, it was tough. I remember feeling like the space for grieving was a little cut short. Not in a horrible way or in a way that hurt my feelings, but, you know, we were of course receiving so many calls and cards and support from our church family. And when COVID came, you know, a lot of that stopped because people needed to be home. And so stopping by or You know, being in person and having that hug from people that know you and love you, it just stopped. What I will say is that I knew at the beginning, because I've heard other people talk about loss and grief, that grief will always be with you. It becomes not something that you avoid, but a friend that you accept that's a part of your life. And I don't like that. I don't like that. It's different losing your mother, or at least it is for me. I've lost grandmothers. I've lost grandfathers. I've lost cousins and other family members. I remember feeling a twinge of this when my dad's mother died because she was my friend and we would have these very funny personal conversations. And I knew I was gonna miss knowing that she was there. But I probably talked to my mother every day, multiple times a day. So the hole is huge. And you know, when you lose somebody you love like that, that that hole will never be filled. Nobody can replace your mom. But I do think mentally I accepted towards the beginning of the year Right at the spot where we were doing all the things, business, because when someone passes away, there's the business of wrapping their life up. Whether or not they were prepared or not, you still have work to do. And then we went into the business of ministry and keeping things going. But I don't think I pretended ever not to be sad or to be struggling. I had so many people who were worried about me. They said, Chrystal Hurst, y'all just You just keep going. I'm built like that. I think I share that commonality with my dad a little bit. Health is working. Health is moving. Health is doing that with a tear dropping down your face. And I do think because I'm a girl, and I am a pretty emotional girl at that, I think walking around being honest about how I'm doing is something I'm able to do. Do I think I should have been grieving differently? No, I don't think so. What I do think though is that I have had to become more comfortable with, um, letting the emotions come when they come and, um, not standing in the way of them because letting them flow is healthy. And when you have to do that because it's how you're built, to move and to keep going. Being comfortable with the tears flowing is something I've had to learn. That said, I also, again, understand that grief is a part of who I am. It will always be. I will always miss my mother. Life will never be the same without her. Um, I will forever think that death is horrible, however it happens. But I know that deep grief comes from deep love. The harder you love somebody, or the more they love you, the more the hole when they're not there. So Grief takes courage. It takes courage to move through. It takes courage to own. And the fallout from losing someone you love is bigger than your loss. They held a spot in your structure, in your family, whether that person was your mom or someone that you really enjoyed at work. They, they held a spot. It's kind of like when you lose a tooth. Every tooth holds a spot because every other tooth holds its spot too. And when one tooth gets pulled or is damaged or whatever happens, everything else starts shifting. So my mother's absence, we feel it in so many different kinds of ways. How we do things as a family, how we interact as a family, what she would do to be a part of the conversations, that balance. We're off balance. The, the sure footing feels lost. And I know I can say for my dad that that is the case for him too. They've been together since they were 18. They got married when they were 20. His whole adult life, his whole ministry has been built with her at his side. So grief is what it is. I say all the time, it feels wrong. It feels horrible. It feels It feels like a hole that you want to fill and you can't. There's nothing that you can do about it. But here's what I can do about it. That's not fixing it, but it is living with it, is to realize every time the grief comes, the benefit, the, the reason, the blessing that I have the grief. It's because I had a good mom. So grief is an opportunity. It's an invitation to me to feel and remember. It's like fasting, you know, as a believer, if you make it a practice to fast, the point of fasting is to deny yourself what your body needs so that every time you feel a hunger pain, you're reminded to have a spiritual filling when you don't have a physical filling. It is a reminder to go to God because there are so many other things that are benefits from him, even if you're missing the benefit of food for a season. Well, I'm fasting my mother for the rest of my life. So every hunger pain for her voice, every hunger pain for her touch, every hunger pain for her wisdom, is a reminder of the benefit that I've had all of my life. So I feel it, and then I try to figure out what to do with it. One of the lessons that I've learned about loss is that when you've loved, felt loved, been loved, experienced love, that loss reminds you that you had a gift. And the longer I live, I'm sure I will forever be walking in a greater awareness of the gift that she gave, because as you get older and you walk in the shoes of your parents, you understand the cost that they paid for you. So loss is a reminder of love. Grief is a companion, but it, it's a companion that helps you see the world with good lenses. It's a companion that, if you will allow it to, makes you a better person because you see the world and you realize that people are in pain. And when people are in pain They, they act in ways that are not their norm. They, they're not able to function fully. They lash out in hate or frustration or anger because you do realize that anger is a secondary emotion for grief. When you experience grief, you see people if you will allow grief to do its work in you. Everybody in life at some point, one point or another, will be in pain— physical pain, emotional pain. And when you have had grief yourself, and then you see— grief is also a friend that gives you the gift of sight. It gives you the gift of awareness because it brings with it the reminder that you yourself will not be here forever. So what do you have to get right? Who do you need to talk to? What do you need to get in order in your home? Grief, if you will allow it as your friend, can give you sight and perspective. Because my mother, her presence is missing, and because we feel how off balance we all are as a family, because we're shifting and moving and rediscovering who we are without her here. It's made very clear to me what she held together. It's also made me very clear about what I, as a wife, as a mom, as a grandmother, as a sister, as a friend, what I want to hold together as my gift to the people who love me and who I love. Grief is tough, and I don't know that it'll ever be something you get over if you're experiencing grief, but it is a reminder of what has been good. I had one of my children by C-section. I had one natural in the hospital, then one attempted natural that ended up a C-section, then one after C-section, rough birth at home, and then another one that just slipped on out at home. But that C-section scar I still have, and when I first Got home, it was extremely painful. And I asked to leave the hospital early because the hospital was nasty. The person who cleaned the room did something really nasty and I just wanted to go home. And I told the doctor, "Can I go home? I've done everything you want me to do." And she said, "But if you go home, you have to rest. You've had major surgery." I said, "No problem." Then I went home and the next morning got up and tried to make some eggs. I bent down, 'cause I thought nobody's making me breakfast. I bent down, and all of the soft tissue on the inside of my stomach just fell forward onto the open scar inside of my body. I've never felt pain like that in my life. And I was reminded because of the pain to move slower, that I was healing and that I needed to take my time. Today, I still have a scar. And honestly, if I move really quickly in one direction or the other, every blue moon, That scar reminds me that I was cut one day. But most of the time, when I look at my scar in the mirror as I get dressed, I'm reminded of the blessing of the baby that came out of there. I'm not crying over the scar every day like I was before. The scar is a reminder that I love, that I have someone to love and someone that loves me back. Grief is a scar. It's a part of you. It will always be. But over time, it gives you sight and perspective, and it reminds you that you were loved. I know that grief does not always remind us of that. Sometimes we experience grief because we weren't loved, loved well. The person is actually still living and it's ongoing grief. But here's the thing: if you will choose to see what grief wants to show you, there's so much more to see than the pain that has come from that relationship.. It probably means that you have love to give. It probably means that you understand that people are broken. It probably means that you want to be proactive about making sure that whatever was done to you, you don't repeat. It has still given you a gift. Your grief will mark you forever. My friend Michelle said in a conversation, she said, there is worship in grief as well as gladness. And I believe that that's true. Courage is the decision to move forward in life with grief, not angry for the fact that it's become a companion, not upset that it's part of your story, but realizing that with it being a part of your story, that it changes your story and it can change your story for the better. That's what I've learned about loss and grief. I've also learned something about comfort. When you have needed comfort, that helps you to know what kind of comfort other people need. Again, it's all about perspective. You also get to know when you walk with God, the comfort that only he can give. There are scriptures that talk about comfort. Let me share a couple of those with you. Psalm 34:18, "The Lord is close to the broken and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Another one, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, "God is a God of all comfort who comforts us in all of our troubles so that we can comfort those who are also experiencing trouble with the comfort we have received from God." There's something that you only get from God when you're in the darkest of places. There is a sweetness in your relationship with him that only comes when you need him desperately. We are creatures who tend to want to be self-sufficient, and loss and the experience of grief remind us that we're not self-sufficient at all, and that when no one else can be with us or no one else understands our pain, that he is there and he gets it. Father God, Jesus in the flesh, the Holy Spirit with us, God all three in one gets it. And in the dark of night, when you are crying and the tears won't stop, and you are telling him that it hurts so bad, he gets it. The comfort that you get from God when you're broken and feeling that there's a leak in you that won't stop is a comfort that not only fills what you've lost as you've leaked out, it also repairs the leak. God is a balm in Gilead. A balm that not only soothes but plugs the hole. In my house, there's a hole right now. Yet and still, there's a hole where the pipes are broken. And we're waiting our turn for the restoration company to come and fix it because Texas and the freeze and Snowmageddon. And I had something that needed to be fixed in my house the other day, unrelated to that. And the gentleman that was here noticed the hole and he walked up and he was asking me about my pipes. And then he noticed that there was a wire, an exposed wire. I'd seen it. I didn't really think much about it, but he showed me that it was a live wire. And he said, it's really important that when they come to fix this, they cap that wire. If that wire touches this material inside of your walls, it can cause a fire. Now, I didn't know I had a broken wall or broken wire in my wall, but with me being broken in my home and wide open, what needed to be addressed that was there inside the whole time will now be addressed. And when they close my wall, what was inside will be better off than before it was cracked wide open. Sometimes. The cracking open is what leaves you room to experience God's comfort. And once you've had the experience of God's comfort for yourself, you learn more about Him, your relationship with Him, and who He has created you to be. Even as a broken vessel, you can still be a vessel that can be used. Peace doesn't mean that you won't have problems. That's what my dad always says. Peace just means that your problems don't have you. And then there's this quote that I love from Earl Grohlman. I want to share that with you. Grief is not a disorder. It's not a disease. It's not a sign of weakness. It's an emotional, physical, and spiritual necessity. It's actually the price that you pay for love. And the only cure for grief is to grieve. And I add, The cure for grief is compassion and comfort that you experience only when you've been the ticket to get on the train of grief. And cured is relatively speaking. You live with it, but you live with the blessing that comes with it too. And then hope. I'm so grateful for the hope that I have in Christ. And I tell you that when you lose somebody, you, you bank on that hope. I mean, I've prayed the prayer many times, "Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief." But I tell you what, even with that same prayer, I also pray, Thank you for the promise that we have in you. That is the blessing of Easter, of Resurrection Sunday. It's a reminder that because he got up on the third day, that we believe we will get up too. And that the last time I saw my mother healthy and whole was not the last time I will see her healthy and whole. Because to believe anything other than that, that when we stop existing, we just stop, and that dust goes to dust, and that's all there is, it's pretty depressing when you lose somebody you love. So when you have the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a reasonable belief, intellectual and spiritual, and faith, because it's impossible to please God without faith, when you have that hope, it changes the game. It changes the game. God reminds us always in his word that difficult seasons won't last forever, that he can use our hardships to remind us of the hope that we have in him, and that our hope, my friend Susie Larson says, is not in our outcomes. When hard times come, they remind you of how important it is that your hope is actually in a living God. So if I didn't mean it before, which I did, oh, but I really mean it now. My hope is in a living God. Emphasis on living. Not some God that, you know, we just want to say that there's got to be a higher power. Not some God who's up in the sky ready to rain down fire and brimstone if I make a mistake, but a God who sent his only Son and said, "There's no way out of this for them." We got 'em going, they got to make a decision. Adam and Eve didn't make the right one, and we gotta give 'em an exit strategy. We have to give 'em a plan that if they actually want to choose me, that I wanna give them hope. Hope that they can live with, live for, and believe in. Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the thoughts that I have towards you." He has a plan and he's had a plan the whole time, which means that when we lose the ones we love, when we experience hurt or harm, and I believe that, you know, that every sickness doesn't lead to death, and I believe that every difficulty in life that we go through isn't God-breathed or God-allowed even. Sometimes we bring that stuff upon ourselves, and we live in a fallen world. What I do believe is that when hard times do come, because we live in this world and in this world you will have trouble, we can remember that there's this overarching plan. That when we experience grief, we can be reminded because of the God of all comfort that grief is not all there is, that loss is not all there is, and that there is a promise of hope that we can live with and live for. If you hope in the Lord, Isaiah 40:31 says, he will renew your strength. He will. And Psalm 119:114 reminds us that you can hope in the Lord. So loss and grief, it is what it is. Comfort is a gift to be enjoyed, and hope is something to be excited about. So when people wanna know why on Resurrection Sunday Christians get so excited, it's because it gives us life and something to live for because of the living hope that we have in him. I'd love for you to tell me in the comments how you've been struggling with loss and grief. It's a safe place here. If you're there in the comments and you share, or even if you don't, like the comment or comment back to somebody who is sharing their own story of loss and grief. Y'all know what I always say, we're better together. And I'd love for you to share also if you've experienced the benefit of God's comfort in your life, to share that too, because your sharing about your journey through grief, your comfort, and your hope will bless somebody else who watches this video, who searches for grief, for loss, and stumbles here. To know that here they are among friends. I hope that that was helpful. I hope you feel after listening that you are not the only one that's experiencing loss, that's walking through grief, that's having to, to move through difficult days. But I hope that you know, one, you're not alone. Two, that the hardship, even if it will always be with you, it won't always feel as poignant. Sharp as it does right now. I hope that you have decided to hold out for hope because hope is worth holding out for, and I hope that you know that I care. I also know that some of you who are watching this video— most of you actually— will probably be watching the replay, and I want you to know that every Monday morning I actually do these talks live, bloopers and all, with my inner Inner Circle. If you'd like to join me every Monday to hear what I share here and a few more things, some behind the scenes, I'd love to have you join me. You can find out more about my Inner Circle by going to chrystalhurtz.com/innercircle. Whether or not you go there, I'll be here next week. See you soon.