A Hard Truth to Receive
Grief in harvest, leadership, giving of yourself, old poetry, rejection and other things relating to slow growth and healing.
If you know me in real life, you probably know me as a pretty happy person. I’m usually cheerful, despite the genuinely overwhelming difficulties I’ve faced recently. I promise, I am not faking “happy.”
Two counter-intuitive things can be true at once; it’s called a dialectic. I am happy and I am also in a phase of deep grieving, which probably began dawning in the summer of 2019.
I Guess It’s Called Grief
As I became more healed and whole in one area, a new challenge hit, often life-altering, dramatic, or life-threatening. I might not have realized I was experiencing grief at first, but this last year I’ve been pointedly processing loss and the trauma-based fear that came with it.
I don’t always want to be depressing here, but part of why I created this space was too give me a space where I could be authentic as I grieve. I am not alone navigating this emotion that too few of us give voice to. I had a hard time expressing grief at first, it felt I couldn’t as I had reserved “grief” the death of a loved-ones. It turns out that grief is still grief, even if it looks a little different than another’s losses.
Slow Growth
A couple years ago I read Growing Slow: Lessons on Un-Hurrying Your Heart from an Accidental Farm Girl, by Jennifer Dukes Lee. I probably won’t even be a farm girl, but I found myself within her pages. Lee grew up in rural America who then moved to the bustling “hustle more” of the city. Years later, she found herself back on the farm, where the slow growth happens. And she couldn’t do anything about those crops or that life to make it move faster.
Whether you love your projects or you lead your people, this book guides us into wholeness as we grow through the tiling, plowing, planting, winter’s death, budding, and harvesting seasons of life.
Leadership Grief
The chapter she wrote on grief opened my eyes to a whole new set of losses I didn’t even realize I had. Actually, I don’t think it was the content itself that affected me, it was the reflection questions Lee put forth about grief in the harvest:
What dreams have died for you?
How have the harvest times in your life looked different than you expected?
Like a dedicated and devout student, I pulled out my journal and studiously made a bullet-point list—nothing was too small to add. At this time, I wasn’t yet unexpectedly pregnant and I only had one recent near-death hospital experience under my belt. Although there was a smattering of other things that made the list, I was surprised at how much my “failed crop” surrounded relationships, especially in spaces where I was leading. It shocked me that little ol’ me had procured so much disappointment and baggage in these areas.
Most of the items that made my list weren’t even that big. But these were pebbles and stones—a few heftier rocks thrown in—that had added up over the years. They were weighty to carry, it was no wonder I was weary and seeing signs of burnout once again! (I’d already done that once and I didn’t want a repeat!)
I took my losses in these relationships and broken dreams in leadership spaces a little more seriously. I took the time to acknowledge them with a name, process what needed to be sorted and then mourn them a little.
(Hint: You might need to do the same. Jennifer Dukes Lee’s questions above are a great place to start!)
In the same motion as writing my list, I found myself immediately writing the following poem. It isn’t fancy, but you might relate.
I Can Only Give…
I can only give to those who want to receive,
Which is a hard truth for me to receive.
I've opened up my home,
People did not come.
I've mentored,
Giving access to every part of my life,
All my vulnerabilities were shared.
That one walked away in judgement,
And then she, for unimportant priorities.
I can only give to those who want to receive.
Through most of my coaching,
Clients never choose to get to the end.
They self-sabotage and I can only ask questions.
I offered my skills through consulting,
To teach with what I learned through fire.
Assuring I would lead from strengths—
But trust, desire or demand was simply rare.
I can only give to those who want to receive.
I've invested in organizations and ministries.
Some so quickly forgot me,
Ignored wisdom they begged me to share.
Then there were those who've betrayed,
Others who wrote me out of their narrative entirely.
I break when I find myself rewritten,
Surprised when it happens again.
I can only give to those who want to receive.
There are times I bear responsibility.
My instinct has been to take all the blame,
To assume it was my fault, only what I did.
In each scenario I've tried to learn,
Separating the truth from perception.
The process can be excruciating.
But I grow stronger and smaller; He becomes larger.
I can only give to those who want to receive.
There have been countless more wins than losses—
Greater harvests than I could have dreamed!
But when I look out on those fields,
Sometimes I am filled with sorrow for what never happened,
The gaps between the wins,
The figurative miscarriages,
And the shriveled what-would-have-been's.
I'm learning that I can only give to those who want to receive.
Processing Onward
Recently, I’ve been grieving some new “shriveled what-would-have-been’s.” I don’t like them. I also don’t want to grow bitter. I accept things didn’t go as I hoped and am grieving what will not be born.
The growth is slow in me, but I’m getting better at this. I’m learning not everyone will receive what I can give, and what I can give isn’t right for everyone anyway. Experience has taught me that I can plow and plant again. The harvest will be worth the crops that fail.
(Look at me, talking like a farm girl!)
I encourage you to process even the littlest of disappointments and hoped-for harvests that shriveled, failed, or burned in a fury. Make your own list. It's okay to be sad and grieve these. Take your time. Bring it before God. Learn from your experiences.
Together, we’ll prepare the ground. Then we’ll fertilize it by speaking forth a future, purpose and hope.
