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grief and loss

What makes us grieve so intensely when someone who had meaning in our life just vanishes? Suddenly they aren't speaking to you every moment, suddenly you forget the sound of their voice, or the joy they filled your soul with. And in those quiet, desolate moments of grief we wonder why does it hurt so intensely? To the point of people actually dying of a broken heart? 

I think its something that God placed so delicately inside us to have us feel like what life feels like when He loses us. It's something so minuscule and apart of our life to lose a loved one, but we never truly grasp it and take it into our hands and say "I know how this works." But God knows. 

And we ask ourselves, why does bad things happen when God's so good? 

The reason it hurts so badly is because God is good. The reason the loss of a person, when they used to be there, they used to love you, they used to be near you, is such a destroying feeling is because God knows it too. Every emotion we feel is because He placed it inside us to relate to Him, make Him more real. 

Of course its different when the person you grieve is still alive. But the feeling of loss is still quite the same. Maybe it's a breakup between someone you loved much, a loss of a friendship you thought would be in your life forever, or even a pet who runs away from home. It's a feeling that cannot be described with words. It's intense, its fear, its love, its a pulling to want to do better. It's a knowing that things are temporary, but in every way it shows how deeply our Heavenly Father feels. 

But, there's a difference between that human loss of a friendship, connection, or love and how God feels for a lost soul because our feeling for that lost human connection is to say that it's over with. Say that whatever happened will no longer live because "that's life." But God, oh that wonderful God. He chases after us. He never gives up, never stops fighting, and always chases after, why? Because He knows the feeling of loss and grief, that He does something about it. 

I find that so comforting. That a God who could choose to run away after we breakup with Him, lose our connection, friendship, and cut us out, He instead chose to chase after, reconnect, and keep us tied to Him. 

But why? I don't think its something I could ever quite understand as a human. It's like air, I can sense it, feel it, it gives me life, and hope, and something to rely on, but it's no where in sight. I am so humbled that a God who could choose to let me go, forget about me and be angry whenever I mess up, would choose to keep me. To fight for me. To love me. 

And with that, I understand this feeling more. It still is painful, but God knows. And He's here waiting with you.