Introduction:
For all my fellow Utah residents, the weather has not felt seasonal during this early Spring period (though now as I return to finish this newsletter during the week of the 8th, the sun’s return has brought some new optimism). I ran out to my friend, Heidi’s, car with bare feet, heels in hand, dodging newly sprung earthworms on the damp sidewalk on Easter Sunday. Although I wore a flowy white dress with watercolor purple flowers to celebrate the bright season, I found myself cold and clammy from the humid air.
It was hard for me to feel like it was Easter with cloudy skies and a rain-sleet mix falling from the sky. I had looked forward to the warm sun and blue skies to help me remember the hope that Christ’s Atonement and Resurrection can provide. But maybe it was meant to be that skies were gray, as my spirit has felt rather gray (cue the Kiera Knightly voiceover as she writes to the newly married Charlotte Lucas Collins in the 2005 Joe Wright adaptation).
Part I: Overburdened Hearts
Over the past few weeks, some old pains and upsetting memories and news have made themselves known and at-home in my heart, causing me deep sadness and distress. When speaking with a friend I stated, “I feel like I’m stitching up these reopened wounds, and not particularly successfully.” It is like I have had a torniquet tied within me to stop the bleeding in my heart, but it has been left on too long, leaving damage in its wake. I remembered when I first went through this specific burden, and my friend, Amy, asked me how I was doing. I remember it was a Sunday, I was wearing one of my favorite dresses and my hair was curled, but I felt absolutely numb, and quite hideous internally. I said, “I feel like something significant broke inside of me, and I do not know how to fix it. I’m not sure if it will ever truly be fixed.”
I have realized (not for the first time) how deeply I despise the feelings that come with grief. I recently read a portion of A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis, and I could almost feel my soul vibrate with how much his words resonated with me. Many of these same quotes are cited in this Substack newsletter by Bradley Gray for Grace Upon Grace, so if you are curious to see what other insights he provides I would recommend you give it a read.
When it comes to grief, it is not just sadness, although a grand portion of it is something akin to mourning after death. But in this case in my life, the mourning is over the death of a dream. And not just a dream, a time of life that I once believed was an answer to the earnest prayers of my heart. But there is more to the feelings, a certain amalgamation of sensations that make even breathing a chore. According to Lewis,
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.
At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.”
I have struggled seeing a future beyond my current circumstances, feeling quite stuck emotionally. Everyone around me has expressed their high hopes for my future, and their admiration for the obstacles I have overcome. And much to my own frustration, I have had difficulty believing them and their sincerity. I love having them around, to remind me of all I have, but then again sometimes being alone is the only way I can somewhat manage expectations, to not worry about putting others’ concerns at ease when I am still coping with how to manage my own.
What is almost more agonizing than the initial moment where the cause for grief began, is how my mind latches onto scents, songs, places, and more that once were causes to smile and now are catalysts for an overburdened heart. Lewis adds to my thoughts perfectly, “Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer” (9–10).
I have certain favorite walking routes through my neighborhood, and one in particular can bring up memories of a deceptively ordinary conversation that turned into a lasting painful recollection. I think of the metaphor Lewis puts forth, “Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape” (60). Every time I think I have packed away certain memories or suppressed the sickened feelings that arise when they knock me down like a gut punch, there can be an unanticipated comment or event that resurfaces something I had never been on the defense for.
These resurfaced emotions make me not only pain internally, but I hate mentioning them to others, as it reveals that my timeline of healing has not progressed as much as others may have thought, even though in reality I have changed and progressed, just not in the way I envisioned. Lewis described this cycle of grief more eloquently, “For in grief nothing ‘stays put.’ Round and round. Everything repeats . . . The same leg is cut off time after time. The first plunge of the knife into the flesh is felt again and again” (56–57). Grief (or the healing from grief) is not linear, and it's not even exponential. It exists as a cycle, a cycle that I am not sure ever really goes away, but rather becomes easier to travel through. I have not reached that point. Instead, I find myself asking the same question as Lewis, “Will there come a time when I no longer ask why the world is like a mean street, because I shall take the squalor as normal? Does grief finally subside into boredom tinged by faint nausea?” (36). I am glad that the nausea feeling is not just a “me” thing.
It is both ever-present, and at the same time sort of surreal that not that long ago, I was neck-deep in the initial pains of my grief while on a girls’ trip to Cedar City to see my first Shakespeare Festival (what timing). I remember vividly (and even sometimes re-experience) the pain I felt when I was awake at 2 AM in that hotel bed, laying next to one of my best friends, with an ache of emotion that tormented me so much I could not fall asleep. I texted my mother, begging her to offer prayers of relief because I feared closing my eyes, feeling that my own prayers were not going to be answered, fearing that the pain would fully consume me in some strange form of drowning. Yet I so desperately wanted sleep to feel some relief from the twisting sensation in my gut and in my chest. I could not get more than an hour or two of sleep without my fitful soul awakening me. It was so apparent that my friends tried all they could to make me comfortable.
One of the most painful memories from this time actually occurred when it was a quiet morning on that trip. In the space between sleep and awake, I could hear them quietly discussing grabbing breakfast downstairs, and at the same time debating if they should wake me up to join. My heart absolutely shattered when I heard one of them quietly say, “She is finally asleep, we should let her get some rest,” implying that they would get me food and let me lay wrapped in the white duvet to maybe get one more hour before we needed to get ready for the day. Even now, remembering how I was so unable to take care of myself in that despair, and how my friends were in their deepest, most loving sincerity trying to keep me afloat brings genuine tears to my eyes (which makes typing a bit hard, I will admit).
And with my resurfaced grieving these past weeks, I have had to pray with deep sincerity each night that God can spare me from the nightmares my grief reels up from my subconscious (though not necessarily what many would consider a textbook definition of nightmare). I have really had to work to trust God at this time, with recalibrated (though not fully formed) expectations. I have feared that anything that I find solace in, any future blessings I will receive will disappear as soon as I accept them. God is not a God of myth, giving and taking out of some sense of sport to confuse and thwart the lives of us mortals. He is a loving Father who does not engage in some cosmic bait and switch. Yet I am guilty of thinking that this is true for everyone else except for me. The cycle of my life’s trials, combined with what is a misunderstanding of God, makes me feel like Lewis when he states, “Time after time, when He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture” (30). I am trying to accept that the torture comes from the Fall and the follies of human experience, and that God is preparing us for the next blessing, even though I have felt like I am in the midst of darkness.
I have wondered why I tend to write about the pains and afflictions of life more readily than the things that make me excited. There are things that do excite me (my upcoming trips to Boston and Prince Edward Island being one), though it has taken me quite some time to feel excited about anything. Is it because sadness is more interesting to analyze? Perhaps, but it is more emotionally taxing, and can be quite tiresome for those who may not have the emotional bandwidth to empathize. But the more I thought about it this week, I realized why I personally have veered toward writing these more emotionally charged newsletters.
There is plenty I am grateful for, and plenty in my life that I would not change, despite what it may seem. But I have found that when I am happy, I do not need to share my news in order to validate the joy that others are experiencing. People do not need to be reminded how happy they are (or at least I do not). I share the hard feelings to hopefully help someone out there realize they are not a burden, that they are not insane, that they are not defective because they find themselves grappling over and over with their own personal tragedies and grief. In a way, I hope to validate the timeline of healing that each one of you have.
I have found myself asking the same questions and making the same observations that C.S. Lewis wrote near the beginning of A Grief Observed,
“Where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels — welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside” (6).
This notion of God going silent in the midst of immense trials is not new. In fact, it is probably one of the biggest philosophical debates those within and outside of religion have when contemplating the nature of God. I suspect that anyone, namely anyone who practices religion, who has not asked these questions is likely lying.
Lewis published A Grief Observed in 1961, and nearly 123 prior, in the December of 1838, Joseph Smith sat in the cold cellar that was Liberty Jail and proclaimed in what would become D&C 121:1,
“O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place? How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people and of thy servants, and thine ear be penetrated with their cries?
“Yea, O Lord, how long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful oppressions, before thine heart shall be softened toward them, and thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them?
“O Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven, earth, and seas, and of all things that in them are, and who control lest and subjectest the devil, and the dark and benighted dominion of Sheol—stretch forth thy hand; let thine eye pierce; let thy pavilion be taken up; let thy hiding place no longer be covered; let thine ear be inclined; let thine heart be softened, and thy bowels moved with compassion toward us.”
Whether we are imprisoned physically, mentally, or emotionally, the answer lies in Easter. This Easter season has been one where I have been truly fighting to have a deeper knowledge of and connection to God, because it means more to me now more than ever. In the words of Lewis, “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you” (22).
Part II: Empty Tombs
The last time I published, the day after Easter, I published my discourse on Mr. Rogers. I was so behind in my own self-imposed (self-inflicted?) publishing schedule, that I felt that trying to draft Easter thoughts from scratch in less than a day would not only be disjointed, but insincere, as Easter deserves more thought. Yet even looking forward, I was concerned about what I would write. I have lacked hope in a season that is literally all about hope, and I felt nothing I could say would be meaningful. I have yearned to feel reacquainted with the hope I used to have that God’s plan was working for me. It is, but it is so hard to trust it when each new bend has presented new challenges that have been emotionally burdensome to accept.
Then I came to the realization that my Easter thoughts, though informed by new experiences, still hold validity as I remembered that a significant part (but not the ultimate event) of the Easter story is a story of grieving and questioning on the part of Christ’s disciples.
I am not referring to the immediate grief that Christ’s disciples felt as they saw Him arrested, betrayed by one of their former friends and followers, then carrying his cross through the streets, then having His hands and feet nailed to the cross (a more violent method than what the Romans usually did, which was to tie victims to the cross) and seeing Him lifted up, crowned with thorns, now the subject of one of the most painful, excruciating, and drawn-out forms of execution. I am not even necessarily referring to the immense grief they must have felt as they saw the life leave Christ and then having His lifeless body brought down from above, battered, bruised, bleeding, and broken. These events are incredibly full of grief and pain, even for those of us who study this scriptural account thousands of years after the fact. My heart aches as I think of Christ’s mother having to witness all of this, and then hold His body, perhaps sobbing as she remembered holding His little form for the first hours of His life, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Yet when I think about the grieving in this story, I think about the grief that happened in solitude, primarily the grief of Mary Magdalene.
I try to think about how Mary felt as she gazed into the empty tomb, seeing that the body of Christ was gone. How she already was mourning His death, but at least knew she could visit His resting place, but even that was taken from her. The last physical evidence of Christ, gone. I try to imagine losing the person that brought the most complete healing she had experienced, the being who manifested pure love and used perfect intellect to teach others about the way to salvation, who Mary had the privilege of walking beside throughout His ministry. I probably would have been in despair, wishing to see His face once again. I probably would have thought similar words to what Lewis stated when he wrote, “ I need Christ, not something that resembles Him” (65).
I imagine myself in the place of Mary, staring into that empty tomb, distressed and unsure of how to go on. Perhaps I visualize myself in her place because I have been stuck in that mental space, looking at metaphorical empty tombs at this juncture of my life.
I think about how Mary was unaware that while she probably desired to see Christ lying in the tomb, an even greater answer to her desires was standing behind her in the form of the resurrected Christ. And what is more interesting is that in the midst of her sorrow, Mary did not recognize Christ or His voice or even His form when He asked, “Woman, why weepest thou?” In the words of James E. Faust in October 1996, “The Savior was speaking not just to the sorrowing Mary. He was also speaking to us—men, women, and children and all of mankind ever born or yet to be born, for the tears of sorrow, pain, or remorse are the common lot of mankind.” Mary, like us in many circumstances, found herself mourning alone.
Mary believed Christ to be the gardener (which there is so much symbolism I could break down in that assumption, but I will save that for another day). I believe that part of the reason for this, if not the primary reason, is Mary probably had great difficulty believing that she would see Christ on Earth again. How often do we doubt God can bless us with something greater than we could imagine? We only know what we know, we only can refer to the sum of our past experiences. From what religious scholars gather about Mary, she was well-acquainted with pains and afflictions, and Christ’s death and missing body from the tomb may have brought up feelings of loss that she had felt in prior years, though this was unique compared to what she had witnessed.
Mary only realized that Christ stood before her when He called her by name. This shows us how God and Christ bless us consistently, but often we do not recognize these blessings because we search for certain hallmarks of authenticity. Yet those hallmarks are based on our preconceived notions of how we imagine God will make Himself manifest in our lives, rather than opening ourselves up to the possibility that we could receive more than we hope for. This is based on personal experience, and I know God is seeing how willing I am to trust in His plan even when it does not appear how I envisioned.
‘God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down’ ( Lewis, 52).
As I alluded to earlier, it felt strange not publishing Easter thoughts on the holiday, and it felt belated to publish it now. Yet a new thought struck me. We live in a world “after Easter.” Even those in the past before Christ’s resurrection exist in a world after Easter, since the Atonement He performed is infinite and encompassing to all who have or will ever live. Just like Christmas, the joy brought by Christ’s life and sacrifice are not meant to be isolated to one or two days of the year. We cannot force revelation, and we cannot force a testimony. I have realized that I put so much pressure on myself to feel a certain way on these days, when really a significant thing I can do is cultivate my testimony on the ordinary days, the days “after Easter.” Mary felt overwhelming joy seeing Christ again on that Easter morning, but I cannot help but think about the lingering peace and happiness she felt in the days after, realizing that life was permanently altered, altered with infinite hope for life after death.
I still have a long way to go. I am still staring into the empty tomb, wondering how life will change for the better. I have been so used to other shoes dropping that even if I can visualize something great, it feels like a fantasy. Yet I am seeking out the things that I have been blessed with as I work towards that greater trust in God. I know He has trust in me, as He has gifted me agency to make choices and to choose trust in Him. I am still in the process of turning to see Christ behind me, but if the Easter story is to teach me anything, He will be there and will call me by name.
Much love,
Jo
Works cited:
C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: HarperOne, 2015).
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "Woman, Why Weepest Thou?" General Conference, 5 Oct. 1996, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1996/10/woman-why-weepest-thou?lang=eng.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Doctrine and Covenants, section 121, chapter 1.