Thursday, August 25, 2011

How long will you grieve?

1 Samuel 16:1 "Now the Lord said to Samuel, "How long will you grieve over Saul...?"

Saul has just taken matters into his own hands, disobeying God's order to destroy the Amelikites. And because of his defiant disobedience God has rejected him as king over Israel.

And Samuel grieved. He grieved for the person he loved and the person he thought Saul was and would be. He grieved over a lost hope.

I think many times we have to grieve when someone deeply hurts us. When they "betray" the thought of who we thought they were.

That's a realization I've walked up to this past week.

I realized what I've been doing with my mother was waiting for her to take the fall. Waiting for her to admit what she had done that had hurt me. Waiting for her to apologize and admit that her actions toward me had hurt me and altered my life from what it could have been.

And I realized that wasn't going to happen.  She was not going to take the "fall" for those things when she couldn't even admit they happened.

It took over 3o years and 1 entire year of conflict for that to sink it and become a reality - I have been grieving the lack of hope in that relationship for the past year.

But how long, Reagan, will you grieve?

I don't know how long Samuel grieved over Saul before the Lord told him to move on. Perhaps it was days, maybe months; who knows? But at some point God said, "Okay, Samuel, let's move on." In my mind God was acknowledging to Samuel that he was grieving and that was okay to do, but at some point, God says, its time to move on.

He, of all people, understands betrayal and loss of hope in humanity. We are frail, failing objects of divine creation. We mess up. We hurt others. Others hurt us. It's okay to grieve. And then its time to move on, accepting the face of reality and dealing with it in the present.

I feel like this week God took my hand and said, "Let's go.  It's time for some new territory to cross."

And it is strangely hopeful.