"But in spite of setbacks, recurrences and the sense that our sorrow keeps doubling back on itself, there is an end to mourning, to even the seemingly most inconsolable mourning ..."  Judith Viorst, author of Necessary Losses

The difficulty with writing this blog every day is that women are in such different places.  Recently I have been worried about those of you who are still in that valley of mourning.  Even though mourning is a necessary part of recovery, there are really no appropriate words to describe what you're going through. (That's why it's sometimes hard for others to offer consolation). This is how I tried to describe my own divorce grief in my book Radical Recovery. "Grieving was new to me.  I have never lost a parent, a sibling, a child, even a really close friend.  So, the sick-in-my-heart, sick-to-my-stomach, deep sighing kind of pain I was feeling was something I had never experienced.  The oppression covers everything you do and everything you experience with a muffling, gray all-enclosing sadness.  Every breath and every move takes effort.  You stare at the ceiling at night.  As hard as you try to 'pull yourself out of it,' you fail."  The grief of divorce seems to me to be even harder than the grief of death because there is also the rejection part of it.  Most of our wasbands made the choice to leave or continued doing things that were incompatible with marriage .  I grieved that reality long and hard.  True grieving is an exhausting, desperate journey.  But that journey, like it or not, refines us.  Amazing as it is, that pain teaches new lessons of true joy.  Life becomes more full and complete than ever.  There is (finally) an end to the grieving, and that end brings the bright fresh light of undeniable peace and refreshing joy.  Hang on, you will get there, too.  There is an end to mourning.  You will laugh again ... and find a new gladness you never expected.

"I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow."

Jeremiah 31:13b (NIV)