The road to despair is always crowded; usually, however, it is walked by one or two or three people, alone or together, heads looking down, shoulders hunched forward, feet dragging—lonely. I have traveled this road myself on occasion and, on the way, have passed many coming and going. We have looked at one another and have seen nothing there worth talking about—emptiness. Emptiness does not require a conversation, as we hurriedly look away and move on.

Where is this road? It is wherever you go when you have nowhere else you want to go. It is around the corner in a bar, down the street in a noisy coffee shop, at a church on Sunday evening. It is not quite far enough to get away but any escape will do when you need to travel this road. But most of all, it is sometime after it happened kind of place. The first few days or weeks after it happens, we somehow muddle our way through. But at some point, we have to face the fact that the rest of the world is going on its merry way and cares not about what we’re going through. This is the place where most of us live when faced with the inevitability of loss—the loss of a loved one, a relationship, a job.

And we try to understand how to deal with it. We converse as we travel along or as we pass and meet one another. We wonder whether it will be better tomorrow. We rationalize that somehow or another, we’re better for having gone through this, and that the best days are in front of us. But we don’t really believe a single word of it. We grieve the dislocation of our lives, the shadowy tentacles of a sudden uncertain future. Our loss holds us so tightly that we cannot quite let go of it. But let go we must.

And then we run into this stranger, this mystery person that comes to us in a guise we recognize not, and this stranger asks us irritating questions which seem like accusations. We had hoped that things will be better. We had hoped that some way or another, there’s a way by which God will work things out and redeem, release and restore our hopes. Oh, we had hoped. And so we make up all kinds of theories to explain our loss.

There is nothing we can do to alter this road that we all must travel…sooner or later. And when we do, there’s nothing wrong with grieving what or whom we’ve lost, but we must grieve appropriately. Do not wallow in grief or self-pity. Learn to move on. Go forward in love and clear vision.

Have you traveled this road? Are you traveling this road now?