Lesson 3. The Wilderness

"Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light,

so when we are in sorrow then the light is nearest to all of us." -Meister Eckhart

"Think of your grief as a wilderness - a vast, mountainous, inhospitable forest. You are in the wilderness now. You are in the midst of unfamiliar and often brutal surroundings. You are cold and tired. Yet you must journey through this wilderness. To find your way out, you must become acquainted with its terrain and learn to follow the sometimes hard-to-find trail that leads to healing... And even when you've become a master journeyer, and you know well the terrain of your grief, you will at times feel like you are backtracking and being ravaged by the forces around you. This too, is the nature of grief. Complete mastery of grief is not possible. Just as we cannot control the winds and the storms and the beasts in nature, we can never have total dominion over our grief."

Lost, disoriented, bewildered. Caught in the thicket of the wilderness, a good day consists of a glimmer of light passing trough the trees to remind me that hope is still out there. Hope for something good to enter back in this dark forest. Its the little things that help me get by; a child laughing, a phone call from Pops seeing how everything is going, a hug from Jenny. Wilderness is such a incredible analogy for early on in the bereavement. As we walk through the wilderness, I hope you can see the glimmer of light, I hope that you aren't afraid to cry out for help, I hope you can find support and love from God and the people that surround you.

"How do you ever find your way out of the wilderness of your grief? You don't have to dwell there forever, do you? The good is no, you don't have to dwell there forever. But just as any significant experience in your life, the wilderness will always live inside you and be a part of who you are... But you may also be coming to understand one of the fundamental truths of grief: Your journey will never truly end. People so not "get over" grief... we are all forever changed by the experience of grief."