May always used to be my favorite month. The beginning of truly warm and sunny weather, everything that was once lifeless for the winter was now lush and green, the end of the school year, and my birthday. Aside from the intense pollen we have here in North Georgia, there wasn’t much I didn’t like about the month of May.
Now it’s a strange month. I stray from saying “bad” because there’s always good to be found, so it’s just a strange month. As April nears its end and May approaches, I find myself becoming easily annoyed and impatient. I know I’m a sinner, it doesn’t take spending much time around me to find that out, but this specific time of year is different. All of my tasks seem overwhelming, and I can’t think clearly.
Then I realize it’s a larger, unanticipated wave of grief crashing on me with strength and persistence. The days surrounding painful anniversaries bring on a sometimes surprising level of grief.
I could say May is a bad month for me, but the truth is it’s a blessed month. The sweetness of salvation becomes greater juxtaposed with the bitterness of loss. And it’s strange, but it’s the good kind of strange.
When grief hits hard, whether expected or unexpected, I encourage you to lean into the One who is strong enough to carry all the pain of the world. We all need a relationship with our Heavenly Father. A relationship where we know we are destitute of any hope, and the only hope we have rests in the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ.
I could tell you a million things to help you along your walk with grief, but there’s only one true way to healing and without that all the rest will only momentarily cover your pain. That one way is Jesus; fixing your eyes on Him, thinking on Him, dwelling and meditating on His word, talking to Him, and listening to Him. When we want to scream at the ones we love because we feel strangled by grief, we can cry out to Jesus to not let our flesh be overtaken by the pain of this world. When we feel like we haven’t a bit of energy or mental clarity left to get us through the day (or even begin the day) we can call on our great God to hold us up throughout the day. There is victory in Jesus alone. May is my strange month, but it’s a month filled with the deep reminder that Jesus is the Victor of my life – not me.
