Good Grief!

When something is broken, I want to fix it. Some things can't be fixed. So what to do with something broken? Mostly I deal with broken things by grieving. Grief is a God-given emotion (in my opinion anyway). Romans 8:17-18 states "Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, if indeed we share His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." There are things that are out of my control. I don't think the only time humans grieve is over death. Grieving can be over a change in situation, longing for the way things used to be. It seems like a lot of things have been piled on my plate in the last six months. For a while I struggled with how to deal. Then I asked God to make my plate bigger, instead of taking things off my plate. (Does this make any sense at all? I heard the analogy one time on a Blackaby video.) Grief can overwhelm and consume, to a point where it is the main focus. I don't think that is how grief should be. Chris is very structured with EVERYTHING. If you have been around theshubertfam for longer than two minutes, you know that Chris has "The Plan" for us, how he thinks everything should happen. "The Plan" worked for (maybe) the first year of our marriage. Then things started to unfold and be revealed to us that made "The Plan" obsolete. We could have grieved that things didn't work out according to "The Plan" but instead we chose to rejoice in God for revealing His plan for us, or parts of it for now. I say all of this to say that grief can be good, as long as it is known that grief is temporary.