Grief will mess with your head

There's been a "theme" of sorts in my life lately. Every devotion, article, and website link I read speaks the same message. Courage. It's almost gotten to the point of ridiculous, really. The Global Leadership Summit I attended last week started out with the very statement that leadership takes enormous courage. Of course, the statement was in context to the summit, but I have no doubt that God was using the GLS conference to reinforce the message to take courage.

One of the speakers from the GLS, Brené Brown, has this definition of courage: "The root of the word courage is cor—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage literally had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”"

I've recently (as in last week!) realized that I am courageous. The sharing of my blog, the sharing of my feelings is, indeed, courageous. I've never thought of myself as courageous. Seriously. In fact, I thought quite the opposite. I am was full of fear. I let fear rule for too long in my life over too many things. But when your greatest fear comes true and you live through it, you realize fear was just a myth. You realize that, with God's help, you are braver and stronger than you think. You realize the handcuffs that fear throws on you are from the Dollar Store and are made out of plastic. You realize you have the capacity to break out of the cuffs.

But fear is persistent. He thrives on silence and counts on the fact that those fears will be kept private. He knows he can keep you prisoner if you believe certain lies. His MO is to walk beside you whispering lies. It's all too easy for him, really, because when you fall for his lies, you turn to him with your arms out, and then he slaps on the cuffs quicker than you can blink.

Fear is just one of many companions along the journey of grief. And if fear can't take you into custody, then despair will give it a shot. He has a way of messing with your head, making you wonder and doubt. It's not just one's faith that gets pounded when one loses a child. Despair takes advantage of the sleepless nights, the jumbled thoughts, and the physical exhaustion of grief. He lunges at you in the dark.

It takes courage and truth to escape the lies of fear and despair. I'm so thankful for the truth of God's word. There is nothing more powerful than His word, especially when battling grief. I've been attacked by despair and handcuffed by fear, but the LORD sent the way of escape through His word. This email devotion on Monday was my way out: Antidote for despair. The key to freedom for me was this line about David: "Despair wasn’t avoided by seeing the goodness of the Lord but by believing he would again see God’s goodness."

I need to keep believing the truth and stay courageous despite what the companions on this grief journey say.