A Short Journey with Grief

 

Monday, April 25, 2022

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.    

1 Corinthians 15:19

My friend and fellow-pastor, Charles, lost a dear friend some time ago, when she lost a struggle with incurable tumors.  Charles had become caregiver and counsellor to both Michelle and her parents.  It was an exhaustive battle that lasted more than a year.  You become weary driving hundreds of miles a week between Linwood and Durham.  With the doctors, Pastor Charles, and Michelle, a vibrant follower of Jesus Christ, waged a battle for her life.  Often it was only the bond of Christ that offered any hope or solace for what was coming.

Michelle died the week before Annual Conference for the Methodist Church.  Charles recalled:  I buried my friend on Sunday, left for annual conference on Monday, and played golf with my friend (Rick) on Tuesday instead of attending the meetings.  That day on the golf course, Charles was engulfed with guilt over doing something he normally enjoyed; it had only been two days since he buried his best friend. 

On one of the greens, Charles was preparing to putt, and 7 butterflies gathered around his feet and the golf ball.  He looked at his friend, Rick, and said:  It’s Michelle saying it’s ok.  The grief had been building for more than a year, as Charles was anticipating the loss of a treasured friend.  Suddenly it was released by the serendipitous gathering of butterflies.

So…was it Michelle?

There is a long human-family fascination with the beauty and presence of souls departed, and butterflies, which stretch across virtually all cultures and epochs of mankind’s search for meaning.  The Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and even Native American stories include religious accounts and beliefs of transformation, soul rebirth, resurrection, hope, and beauty personified in the winged harbingers of comfort we call butterflies:

The Blackfeet tribe believe butterflies are a conduit for peaceful dreams, and individuals use visual representations of butterflies to have a restful sleep.

The Aztecs believed the butterfly was a symbolic representation of the soul of the dead similar to other civilizations, but they also believed them to be symbols of resurrection and transformation.

Native American traditions are still followed to this day as every year, monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico around the Day of the Dead. The lore associates the butterflies with the returning souls of deceased ancestors and allows families to honor the souls and memory of their loved ones. [1]

Not everyone has an experience like my friend Charles and Rick shared that day with the butterflies on a North Carolina golf course.  But the comfort of a moment to release the weight of a year’s anticipatory grief, in the face of such loss, tells us it was certainly God at that moment caring for one of His own.

For You Today

If you’ve struggled with grief a little too long, I’m not recommending golf (it has its own struggle and brand of frustration).  I do commend, however, remembering we were never meant to live in these bodies forever. 

The worm, within its chrysalis stage of struggle and change, reminds us of transformation, where everything beautiful and ugly (or painful) in this life is made holy and eternal by the God who is behind, above, below, and alongside every sufferer.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] This and following historical lore:  Symbolism of the Butterfly