Patience

Patience is not one of my strengths and the grief process has been no exception.  I don’t know what I am waiting for.  I guess I just know that I don’t like my current state and I want it to end.

The problem is that I am being told that this is a good process; a process ordained by God.  Grief reflects the gift of the love that I had for Christopher.  This love is something that certainly exceeded my expectations.  I have said from early on that had I known that I was going to go through this loss, I would have still adopted Christopher.  I’d go through this willingly to not have lost the joy of those thirteen years.
I just admitted to a friend that when I adopted Christopher, I didn’t realize that to love came with such big risks.  There is a saying that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.  I’d agree with that, but I am not sure that if I really had understood the risk of the overwhelming sorrow that I would have taken the chance.  That is not because of the pain of the loss, but because of the mystery of the love.  As much as I have been overwhelmed by the loss, I have been equally overwhelmed to consider the depth of the love that I experienced through Christopher.
So I guess that I am patiently waiting to see what God will do through this painful process.  I don’t know that I am waiting for the process to end as I have been challenged to consider that the end of the sorrow will only come with the end of the love and memory of Christopher; I certainly don’t want that to happen.
I have often said that I don’t understand how people deal with this without a relationship with God; apart from believing that this experience is in the hands of the God of the universe who loves me and loves Christopher, I don’t know that I could deal with it.  I need to know that this is a part of a bigger plan.
As I consider this, I feel like this is not unlike difficult days as Christopher was growing up; in spite of the pain that love brought in the midst of difficult circumstances, I was confident that God would do something big though Christopher’s life.  It takes a lot of patience for a parent to believe and wait to see God’s plan unfold. 
I am still a parent, living with the pain that reflects my love for my son; a parent who is waiting to see God’s plan unfold.  
I suspect that this may require a lifetime of patience.