Spiritual Lessons
The Education of Bereavement
“As an eagle stirreth up her nest …. So the LORD alone did lead him,” (Deuteronomy 32:11 and 12)
“What a startling thought- that the breaking up of the nest is an act of
God’s benevolence! I always looked upon it as a calamity. We are all familiar
with the experience of the breaking-up of home. We remember the glad circle round
the old fire, and how it grew thinner and thinner. One went to the colonies;
one went out to be a governess; one departed with a stranger to a house of her
own; more than one passed into the silent land. I always thought it a subject
for tears. But here is an old writer who makes it a subject for praise, blesses
God for it, declares it to be the first step of my education! I can understand
God’s love in many things. I can understand why I should praise Him for His
gifts to body and soul. But I lose my breath in surprise when I am asked to
make the first stanza of my hymn the adoration of His mercy in loosing the ties
of home! Nay, my soul, it is to strengthen these ties that my Father breaks up
the nest. It is not to get rid of home He would teach thee to fly. It is that
thou mayst learn by travel that thy home is wider than thy nest. He would have
thee learn that in they Father’s house are many mansions, of which thy nest is
only one. He would tell thee of a brotherhood in Christ which includes, yet
transcends, thy household fires. He would tell thee of a family altar which
makes thee brother to the outcast, sister to the friendless, father to the
homeless, mother to the sick, son to the feeble, daughter to the aged- in
kinship to all. Dost thou remember how the child Jesus in the temple lost His
parents for a time. It was to Him the first breaking of the nest; it made Him
think in His solitude of the wider house of His Father. So is it with thy
temple, O my soul. They parents, they brothers, thy sisters, leave thee behind;
and in the vacant place there arises a new altar- humanity. Thy Father has
given thee wings in the night, wings in the breaking of thy ties. Thou hast
soared by they sorrow; thou hast loved by they loss; thou hast widened by thy
weeping; thou hast grown by thy grief; thou hast broadened in being broken;
thou hast enlarged thy sympathy by emptying out they treasures. The storm that
shook thy nest taught thee to fly.”
(George Matheson, Leaves for Quiet
Hours p. 147-149)
This honestly has helped me. It encouraged me in my own time with ‘the education
of bereavement’. Each of us has our own lessons to learn. Mine came in two
seasons. My heart echoes the sorrow George Matheson must have felt at recalling
old times. ‘We remember the glad circle round
the old fire, and how it grew thinner and thinner.’ This was my nest once. And one by one- they
left. I am the youngest of five children, and I’ve watched as three of my older
siblings have gotten married or, at some point or another, moved away. It can be a hard lesson to learn when
your family is especially close to one another. This was my first lesson in the
education of bereavement. What once felt like a solid family unit, became scattered into isolated groups. It felt lonely at times. Like, you've been left behind in the shuffle and excitement that life brings, and then forgotten. But, as George Matheson has said, it can also teach
you to fly. Oddly enough, I’ve never known something to strengthen the remaining few relationships at home, as when one member leaves. It is the sweet after tone of
a bitter bite. I found that, it also helped teach me to be confident in exactly who I was as
a person. As an individual. You no longer hide behind the shadows of your
brother or sisters- but step outside the comfortable conformity of many
feathers in one small place. Maybe not everyone needs to learn this lesson, but when I was younger, I would often strive to be
liked and accepted by other people; by my siblings, and especially by my peers, and even older sibling’s
friends. I would sometimes emulate what they did in many small ways, because they were cool and
interesting and a lot of fun. Not that I was ever not liked by others or
somehow rejected, mind you, but it was my own personality tendency to
“conform”. I still have to be careful of this even to this day. But though this education of bereavement, through this lesson, I learned to be who I was; who God had made me to be. And I learned to be confident in it. I was learning to fly.
The second lesson came much harder for me. It was when my family went
through very trying times several years later. If I could ever say that my family
was on the brink of completely falling apart, it was then. I dare not share the
details of that time in our life. It isn’t necessary. But the verse in Psalms 27:10
became very real for me. “When my father
and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.” I never understood the meaning David must have
had to this verse, until then. My nest was stirred. And more than once I felt
as if I would be falling to my death. But through this, Jesus taught me how to
fly. He picked me up and through the shifting of my nest, my home, taught me
lessons that I will treasure for the rest of my life. Change can be a hard
thing. And the stirring of the nest can be too. But God is faithful. And He
uses what would feel like our most sorrowful bereavements to strengthen and to
grow our faith. They became reasons for praise.
Later, in this same chapter, we see David giving praise. He says- “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see
the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD: be of
good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”
(Psalms 27:13 and 14)
David would have fainted, unless He had believed to see the goodness of
the LORD. Sometimes you have to believe, before you will be able to see it. He believed
in order to see. Sometimes the stirring of our nests feels anything but that of
the “goodness of the LORD”. But this is where we hold fast to our faith in
Christ Jesus our Lord and trust Him to work all things together for good. And
He will. Just as He promised.
“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall
mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall
walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
