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Grief and Coffee

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We grieve in similar fashion to the way we drink coffee, quite differently.  I wonder what we would find on the menu if suddenly coffee shops started selling processes for grief versus tall cups of steaming delights.  It would be a place for a captive audience, even people who do not like coffee end up at coffee shops. The non-coffee drinkers come for tea, hot cocoa, and cookies, but mostly the companionship.  Sooner or later the same folks who find themselves at coffee shops, find themselves in grief. That would be all of us. 

 

We enter grief like we enter some coffee shops.  At times we enter knowing the menu, what we think it is we need.  Other times we walk through the doors, glance at the menu, and are surprised and overwhelmed by all of the options.  It is a lot more complicated than we want it to be. We look for a Number 7, but the menu has changed and there is not a Number 7.  Sometimes we give up and ask the barista to make something we would like. As if there is one menu item that fits all tastes (in which case there would be no need for a menu).  Sometimes we delight in what we are served, sometimes we compare and critique it. Sometimes we suggest our favorite items to our friends, which is only helpful when the recipients of our recommendations have the same genetic predisposition we do as far as coffee is concerned.  Sometimes we stay at a coffee shop for hours, though everyone knows it does not take hours to drink one cup of coffee. Other times we cannot be bothered with going in so we opt for the drive through. Sometimes we opt for the drive through and wish we had gone in, sometimes vice versa.  

 

The difference between a coffee shop and grief is that when you go to a coffee shop you leave assuming you will be back.  We rarely leave grief, or a moment of grief that way. But if one and done is not true for coffee, it is most not likely true for grieving either.  Like coffee, grief is not going anywhere. We will circle back here, some daily, some more occasionally. We meet with grief mostly when we lose people we love, though it can be other things.  People we never had. Dreams that were never realized. Grieving one thing gives us permission to grieve other things. Even when we can name only one thing we are grieving, there are multiple things we grieve in that one loss.  It is okay to stay for hours. It is okay to leave and come back. Whatever you do, don’t write grief off just because, like coffee, at first taste it can be quite bitter. Let God add a little of His grace and goodness to your cup.  Let Him decide how long things should brew. There is a reason people go to coffee shops, “instant coffee” is one of them. Good grief, if there is such a thing, is probably not brewed in a microwave.            

 

Today I grieve a couple of things.  I grieve the loss of my parents, who loved me and lived life so well.  The loss is deep but I would not trade it. I would rather mourn what I loved and had...than something I longed for but never knew.  The mourning stirs other losses. I grieve my stillborn daughter whose heart never beat when I held her. I grieve the child we hoped to adopt a while ago and still have not.  It is painful to long for something that never comes to be, but I think I would choose dreams of the joy along with potential for pain, over the loss of the joy which creates the capacity for such pain.

 

I am not a coffee connoisseur  but I will meet for coffee more often than not.  I can always find something to order, and in time I always return, sometimes for the conversation, sometimes for a good tea.  And while I have never turned into a coffee shop drive through for my own sake, I have done it many times with people I love. Grief, like coffee, will take you places you were not really planning to go, but end up going because you are along for the ride.  Go where grief takes you, for the people you love and for you. At times a detour may be just the pick-me-up you need.  

 

Grief is your own journey, but you do not have to journey alone.  Sometimes you share a cup, sometimes you share the space. Sometimes you sip for a while on your own, and that is okay too.  While I cannot tell you the course your grief will take, I can tell you that you will be glad if you stay the course. I have yet to meet someone who has skipped the hard parts of grief and come out better for it.  I cannot tell you how it will end, mostly I would tell you that it will not end. It will change, and so will you. Mostly in ways you may not think you will. 

 

 Grief is not comfortable, but we can learn to find comfort in grief.  Engage grief like you do coffee, with your senses. See it, smell it, hold it, taste it.  Take it as it is, or if you so choose, add something to it offset the bitterness, to make it richer.  It is not easy to walk grief well. As a society, we are more into coffee than we are grief. While most people have creams and flavorings available for your coffee, they have little to offer for your grief.  Grief can be overwhelming. Do not try and take it in all at once. One sip at a time. If your cup gets cold, reheat it or pour a new one, unless of course you like it cold. There will be a day when God will usher in His eternal Kingdom and for those who know Him as Lord of Lords, all tears will be wiped away.  This is our hope as we sip in our sadness, though it is likely this will not be the day. Hang on to hope and to the grace He promises to pour into your cup each day. We grieve differently, and yet with one similarity; we grieve best when we invite Him into our grief. He has promised to provide and He will. So drink up.  The cup is on Him.

 

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:” …”A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;”     Ecclesiastes 3:1,4 (ESV)

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