What comes first? Grief or forgiveness?

Grief....Forgiveness...

More grief...more forgiveness....

What comes first? Grief or forgiveness? 

It swirls around in my head. The thoughts. The emotions. The unspecific grief. The profound disappointments.

All part of my life. I struggle to find them out. I search to define...

Grief - I lost my champion to death in 2004 in my earthly Father. He's gone. I lost the one who believed in me THE MOST to death in 2011 in my Mother. She's gone. Because of them, I will always stand up for and believe in myself. But it's not the same as having someone, somewhere that you KNOW beyond a doubt...who is at the head of your parade and waving a flag!

I have grieved their deaths. But I have not grieved the loss of my only defenders in life. The two who truly believed in me. They just KNEW I could do it. I felt it. 

There has never been, before or since, anyone to stand up for me. Not anyone. I didn't realize that until this morning during my run and subsequent shower. It just hit me like an epiphany....and, of course, the tears flowed as they washed down the drain with my shampoo.

I have come to a place where I know I must forgive some very specific people. But as I am asking God about it, I realize that I must grieve the losses before I can even know WHAT to forgive.

I am seeing that it isn't the actions of those that I need to forgive, but the disappointments that I have experienced. I am learning that whether or not they are to blame is quite beside the point.

There are a thousand actions that were wrong and against me, maybe even ten thousand. But it isn't the actions I need to forgive, but the people themselves.

That will come as I grieve the profound disappointments in my life. Penetrating disappointments.

Be patient with me as I navigate this alone, with divine guidance. As I free myself from this captivity of unforgiveness.

I will walk in freedom.

A MILLION MOMENTS THAT MAKE ME CRY

MY BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL BOY.

With my new box of kleenex almost gone, my gut wrenching, guttural cries continue.

Don't begin to THINK you understand unless YOU have been the mother of an addict. If you have been an addict...it doesn't count. If you have a dear friend with an addicted child...it doesn't count. Even if you are the beloved auntie or grandmother....it still doesn't count.

MY child. That I love more than ANYONE else in the world. Is lost right now. Is enslaved. And I cannot help him. I cannot save him. Although MORE than willing, there is NOTHING that I can sacrifice that will do it.

"I am beside myself - uncomprehending, terrified. Nothing in my life has prepared me for the incapacitating worry when I don't know where he is. I imagine [him on the streets] like a wild animal, wounded and desperate...."

"I am awake at four a.m. along with parents of other drug addicted children, children who are - we don't know where."

"Even after everything we have been through, I am stunned. [He] is injecting drugs - shooting them into his arms - arms that not that long ago threw baseballs and built Lego castles, arms that wrapped around my neck when I carried his sleepy body from the car at night." 

Hands that so deftly played the guitar, now reach for the poison that holds him captive.

"...anxiety has taken up permanent residence in my body."

"It's not that [I] am not thinking about him. His addiction and its twin, the specter of his death, permeate the air [I] breathe."

"[He] is still gone. Life does not stop."

There are a million moments that make me cry for my son. This is just one....

Yet I will FOREVER have hope. 

[Above quotations are from, "Beautiful Boy" by David Sheff]