Thus begins my first guest post! I was amazed and thrilled by all of the submissions for guest posts that I have received in the last few weeks. My amazing fellow bloggers and friends continue to thrill and wow me with their creativity and wonderful writing!
Today, our post was written by my writing ninja and one of my favorite people. This writer has been my brainstorming partner since the beginning of 2021, and I don’t know what I would do without her! Her heart for Christ and talent for coming up with the most outrageously amazing stories never cease to amaze me. But here I’ll stop talking and let her take over. 😄
Hello, all you lovely readers! I am so excited and honored to get a chance to guest post for our lovely Ella Em! For clarification, I am the individual occasionally referred to as the writing ninja. I also have a normal name, too, but I answer to either.
I don’t know about y’all, but whenever I watch The Return of the King, I get the tissues ready and prepare to bawl. It doesn’t matter what mood I’m in (although a pensive mood makes it worse), I always cry when the ships sail into the Gray Havens. There’s this beautiful “Into the West” musical theme that was played subtly throughout the whole movie, and it comes to a crescendo as everyone parts ways and the story ends. It is the epitome of a bittersweet moment.
It hurts so bad, I just have to cry every time.
Which is why today I present to you the idea of grief for Ella’s lovely summer series on yearning. I think the Gray Havens of LoTR and “Into the West” (the song) are an excellent example of grieving. I would like to begin by saying that this is a very difficult concept for me to put into words, but I think it is important, so bear with me.
Grief comes when you lose something you loved. You can grieve over all manner of things: relationships, seasons of life, projects gone that you poured yourself into. You can grieve your childhood or your innocence or the conclusion of a beautiful story. But grief in a Christian context also has an element of yearning to it. One day, our grieving tears will be wiped away by the hand of Jesus.
For me, grief is an emotion that flows from the idea of “already and not yet.”
The thing you are grieving must be beautiful, but it is also incomplete. You are almost grieving that you don’t get to go into the West yourself. There is an unsatisfiable ache in your chest as you watch the ship sail away to the Gray Havens because nothing will ever be the same as it was. And you loved how it was. But in this fallen world, it was never really perfect to begin with. We wait for something better.
We live in a world of already. But every now and then, we find something so lovely it’s as though Jesus takes us by the hand and whispers softly, “Not yet.” We can only catch glimpses of the West. We cherish and love our glimpses, but they always disappear. Our grief is both mourning the loss of the thing we loved and waiting for the fulfillment of the thing we know is coming.
Ella Em has done a lovely job reminding us that the point of yearning is to direct our eyes and hopes to heaven. Someday (hopefully soon!) we will get to go “further up and further in” to the new creation with Jesus, and that grieving feeling in your chest will expand into a fully satisfied joy you didn’t know you could feel. It is going to be absolutely epic.
In this sense, grief is not the same as sadness. Grief is loss paired with longing, as we wait expectantly for the renewal that has been promised “not yet”.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus. We long to be satisfied.
Image credits: Pinterest, Aesthetic Middle Earth Wallpaper
Wow! This is so thought provoking. I love it!
Beautiful post, writing ninja!