Wake Me Up When September Ends

The music today (and yesterday) contains many songs that speak to grief in one way or another – whether it be grieving a lost love or relationship, or grieving over a loved one one who is no longer on earth. With the resounding crash of {{ September }} like cymbals in my mind, I stumbled across a song by the 90s grunge band group Green Day. Since then, has been on my rehearsal track for open mic nights.

The song, “Wake me up When September Ends.”

Admittedly, I do kind-of want to skip this month as mostly everything makes me realize that this was the last month I had with my friend, my love, my husband, Josh.

While listening to song again, another thought hit me. Even if there was a magical way to skip this month, the truth would remain that there a piece of my life (and heart) is still missing. Yes, time softens the blow allowing me to not be a crying, sorrowful mess all the time, but it doesn’t take away the ache – the deep scar of loss.

Indeed, if I tried to sleep or avoid the whole month of September, I’d wake up and still feel the hurt. I know I have said this before (I am my own resounding sound) but grief doesn’t magically disappear.

The depth of our love  parallels with the depth of our grief.

In my own heartache, I continually realize that no matter how we feel it is still true that we aren’t alone in our grief. God is with us to the depth of our grief. He see it, knows it and doesn’t leave us. In fact, the depth of God’s love parallels the depth of grief.

This brings to mind this Scripture passage:

“So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” - Ephesians 3:17-19 NIV

What I have found in 4 years of wrestling grief is that God is indeed with me in the depths of my grief. Sometimes I am not sure I really let him in, but I do need him. It’s an ongoing process and sometimes still trusting the God who says, “I’ve got you” is hard.

So for both myself and you, my encouragement for this day and this month (whatever day or month that is for you) is this: May we grief grasp the depth of Gods love, ESPECIALLY in the depth of our heartache.

In case you need to listen to some Green Day or read the lyrics here the links are below: I read that this song is indeed about grief, "Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this song about his father, who died of cancer on September 1st, 1982"

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