Denial or Hope?

It’s a question I have been wrestling with off and on the past four months. Am I using hope as a form of denial? When I stand over the grave of my daughter I am acutely aware that my arms are empty and there is nothing I can do. I am left with a deep helpless feeling as the pit within my heart and body grows bigger with the ever widening chasm between the day she entered the ground and the day I am presently floating through. Simultaneously I have these moments of profound hope and gratitude like I have never known before. Hope in knowing that our story does not end with Abigail at the grave and gratitude that she is safely being kept there until we are reunited. 

I have asked my husband more than once if he thought that maybe I was in the “denial” stage of grief because I can feel that grief that people talk about when they have to bury a child, but I don’t feel consumed by it. I feel fueled by it if anything. Fueled in my hope of a reunion with my daughter, fueled in my gratitude towards Christ. We have told many people when asked how we are doing that “we are being sustained by God” and we truly feel that way. That does not mean we don’t cry. There are many moments the feeling is overwhelming but not enough to keep us in bed and to loose all hope of ever seeing our daughter and sister again. 

I suppose the real struggle is to distinguish the difference between “denial” and belief that death truly holds no power for our Abigail. Grief due to the loss of our child has reared it’s ugly head in many different ways but just like a crystal when the light hits its many edges and curves, hope finds a new way to proclaim the same promise proclaimed at the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid; “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen just as he said.”

Lord, I know you are the resurrection and the life and that my Abigail will be raised on the last day. Come Lord Jesus, Come quickly! She cannot come to me, but I will go to her.

Philippians 3:20-21

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.