It's OK to Grieve the Small Things

Everyone is experiencing grief of some type during the Coronavirus pandemic. My last semester of ministry school is now completely online. Graduation is canceled for the time being. The day I have been anticipating for two years won’t happen when or how I expected. My husband’s coaching season is over. His baseball team, who had a promising chance of winning state, came to an abrupt stop. I’ve seen him mourn the ending both for himself and the boys he loves. Some of them may never step on a baseball field again, and they had no idea their last time would be their last. I’ve tried to brush it off and eliminate the grief because compared to rescheduling a wedding or missing out on a high school or college graduation, our grief seems small. But it’s still grief. It’s still loss. Life is still moving in a direction we never expected, and that makes me sad. You don’t have to compare your disappointments to someone else’s. Sure, it helps to shift perspective and have gratitude for what you do have whether that’s good health, a job, a safe home, etc. But you don’t have to stuff your sadness and pretend it isn’t there. Jesus wept too. There is a “...time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance...” (Portion of Ecclesiastes 3:1)We are weeping and mourning right now, but we know we will soon have a time to laugh and dance with all the people we love once again. We will toast at weddings, cheer at games, and celebrate at graduations. The days we’re in look different now and we are mourning things we’ve maybe never mourned before. Let’s all be gentle with one another, give out a lot more grace to our friends and ourselves, and remember that this too shall pass. You don’t have to rush through the grief; let yourself feel the feelings, but ground yourself in the truth that God is near to the broken-hearted and He will wipe away every last tear.

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