What we make of our suffering

 

The following excerpt comes from a fellow creative and grief linguist, John Onwuchekwa.

"Tears of sorrow and tears of joy both canalled into the corners of my mouth, and I realized they both tasted the same. In an instant, grief and hope, joy and sorrow intersected. I learned that grief and hope aren’t parallel streets that we travel down based on life’s circumstances.

They’re winding roads that intersect at some of the most unexpected points.

When the Almighty guides us down the paths of grief, He isn’t leading us away from hope. He’s trying to lead us to the point where those streets intersect so that we never believe the lie that our joy is tied to our circumstances.

Grief doesn’t need to be avoided. It’s calling for us to lean in. And even though our faith is shattered in pieces, we’re never alone. We’re carried along until we reach the point where it begins to make sense.

One of the most important lessons for His children to learn is that tragedy doesn’t ruin any one of us.

Hopelessness does.

You only need to hold on to hope. These stories help us hold on."

On how peace and pain can coexist:

"Grief feels more painful when we've equated the dying persons legacy to death and forget that there are living parts of their story that are still being written to as ours is being written without them in the form we remember them in. 

What a blessing to be able to share my story, to share my hope, to educate people by using God's words like John 16:33 that say, "In this life we will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world," to share that peace and pain can coexist. I've learned so much through this journey and I still learn things every day about who God is. He is the God who sees, the God who is everlasting, He is all I need."