Soul from Mud
Originally posted February 20, 2023
Catastrophic loss shatters what was into what is, and what will be. Following catastrophic loss, normal is often at a “yet to be determined” status. It can camp there a long time. In my office, I hear people describe the experience with these types of sentences:
I cannot live this way.
I do not know how to live like this way.
I do not want to die, but I don’t know how to live.
The pain is unbearable. How do I bear it?
Why? Why? Why?
Catastrophic loss shatters. It shatters life to the core. We break. We crumble. We shatter. We are pounded into dust. Fine-powdery Dust Stage.
Maybe you’ve been there? Perhaps, you’re there now.
As a grief counselor this is often when and where I meet people, and this is where and when I know (really know) that people cannot glue dust back together again. Only God can do this work. And he, as he first did in the garden, kneels into the dirt of us every single time.
My role is to simply invite and guide the shattered ones to come as dust to the Father who leans down, bends low, and breathes air into lungs that have been deflated. His hands-on loving care is faithful. From my bird’s eye office view, it is always a miracle to see life come into being.
And new life – or normal – as we commonly call it, comes again in God’s care, even after catastrophic shattering. Grief is earth-bound; God is not.
If you’re in the Fine-powdery Dust Stage, life is beyond difficult. Words don’t adequately define the struggle. The pain should not be dismissed or minimized. This is the way of the world’s healing – to push you back to being okay when nothing is okay. In the wake of catastrophic loss, everything is wrong and upside down. Dust never settles as it once was, and you cannot settle yourself into life as it once was.
Here’s your good news: You have One who wants to help and can heal. In great care, he will carry your pain. God suffers for the ones he loves; and he loves you. Even though being shattered may make you doubt it. Take one mustard-seed-size step toward him; he will be there.
In my personal journal, I wrote these lines which are really a prayer:
Lord, you are good. When the water around me changed color, when my tears seemingly were as the sea, when loss changed the picture of my life, you were good. You are good. My life was once watery. Liquid. I felt like jelly on the inside. My knees wobbled. I was weakened and weak. I leaked. I was tears from dust. Water from dirt. I was (and am) soul from mud.
Perhaps this knowledge allowed me to come just as I was. To trust that as life was given to me it will be given again and again – no matter the circumstance.
All that earth shatters cannot overcome who you are, what you have done, and all that you will be.
Lord, you are love. And love glues dust into life.
I am soul from mud. Help me to lead others to you.
Catastrophic loss shatters what was into what is, and what will be. Following catastrophic loss, normal is often at a “yet to be determined” status. It can camp there a long time. In my office, I hear people describe the experience with these types of sentences:
I cannot live this way.
I do not know how to live like this way.
I do not want to die, but I don’t know how to live.
The pain is unbearable. How do I bear it?
Why? Why? Why?
Catastrophic loss shatters. It shatters life to the core. We break. We crumble. We shatter. We are pounded into dust. Fine-powdery Dust Stage.
Maybe you’ve been there? Perhaps, you’re there now.
As a grief counselor this is often when and where I meet people, and this is where and when I know (really know) that people cannot glue dust back together again. Only God can do this work. And he, as he first did in the garden, kneels into the dirt of us every single time.
My role is to simply invite and guide the shattered ones to come as dust to the Father who leans down, bends low, and breathes air into lungs that have been deflated. His hands-on loving care is faithful. From my bird’s eye office view, it is always a miracle to see life come into being.
And new life – or normal – as we commonly call it, comes again in God’s care, even after catastrophic shattering. Grief is earth-bound; God is not.
If you’re in the Fine-powdery Dust Stage, life is beyond difficult. Words don’t adequately define the struggle. The pain should not be dismissed or minimized. This is the way of the world’s healing – to push you back to being okay when nothing is okay. In the wake of catastrophic loss, everything is wrong and upside down. Dust never settles as it once was, and you cannot settle yourself into life as it once was.
Here’s your good news: You have One who wants to help and can heal. In great care, he will carry your pain. God suffers for the ones he loves; and he loves you. Even though being shattered may make you doubt it. Take one mustard-seed-size step toward him; he will be there.
In my personal journal, I wrote these lines which are really a prayer:
Lord, you are good. When the water around me changed color, when my tears seemingly were as the sea, when loss changed the picture of my life, you were good. You are good. My life was once watery. Liquid. I felt like jelly on the inside. My knees wobbled. I was weakened and weak. I leaked. I was tears from dust. Water from dirt. I was (and am) soul from mud.
Perhaps this knowledge allowed me to come just as I was. To trust that as life was given to me it will be given again and again – no matter the circumstance.
All that earth shatters cannot overcome who you are, what you have done, and all that you will be.
Lord, you are love. And love glues dust into life.
I am soul from mud. Help me to lead others to you.
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