Weeping at the Door

I keep saying that I’m fine.  My family is healthy. We are all still employed.  We have a lovely home to stay in and a nice neighborhood for walks. And yet last week when I went up to church on my day to check the mail and messages I found myself standing at the doors to the sanctuary weeping.

There is so much loss for each one of us in these strange days.  I was telling myself that missing the kids showing off their Easter looks, not being able to sing the glad alleluias as a community, and having the spring flowers in our yards rather than on the altar seem minor compared to the death and tragedy raging in hospitals around the world.  But grief is grief. My sorrow, loss, fear, and struggle is real, even if it’s not the same as the pain of another.

So I’m weeping at the door. I’m naming how hard this all is, to be disconnected from my people, to be lonely, to be disrupted. I’m leaning into my exhaustion and taking naps.  I’m being gentle with myself about my lack of energy.  I’m allowing myself to not be okay, because things are not okay. And I’m taking comfort in my faith, which claims a heartbroken Jesus in the garden, which knows a God who entered into human suffering, and which tells of the triumph of love over all kinds of death.

-Eilidh