It’s like sitting in a college class you never signed up for. As you look around, every other student looks just as bewildered and unsure as you. Some look more beat-up and battle wearied, while others look put together, almost normal, but somehow you can see it in their eyes. The eyes don’t lie. They didn’t sign up for this class either, they never asked to sit in these seats, they never wanted this professor.

As he approaches the front of the room, you hear deep sighs released from a student in the back, you see tears streaming down the face of a grown man in the front row, and all the while you’re wondering what twist of fate, what plan of God landed you here, a pupil in this class.

Complete silence falls over the room as he begins the lesson.

“My name is Grief. Some of you have just joined my class for the very first time and some of your faces I have seen for years. As we begin today’s lesson, please know, weeping, wailing, fits of anger, rage or confusion, moments of laughter, sneak peeks of joy, and smiles, brought on by memories that flash before your eyes, are not only welcome, but encouraged. Everything you feel today, tomorrow and forever, has been felt and will be felt by countless others.

You Are Not Alone.

You are not alone when you feel guilty for having fun.

You are not alone when your heart hurts so badly, you can feel the physical pain in your bones.

You are not alone when you feel that your very identity was buried with your loved one.

You are not alone when you count the days your eyes have remained dry.

You are not alone when you get angry for allowing tears to fall in front of people.

You are not alone when you lay awake at night wondering how this happened.

You are not alone when you wish you wouldn’t wake up in the morning.

You Are Not Alone.

Before I begin today’s lesson, please stand up and walk over to someone you don’t know and tell them your story, and listen, with painful ease, to their story. Transparency will be your strength in the coming days, months and years. Hear their pain, share your own. Allow your broken heart to find unity with other broken hearts. Wrap your trembling arms around their trembling frames and remind them that they are not alone.

Class, you will forever be my students. You don’t graduate from my class. One day you will look back and see how far you’ve come. You will be able to speak of memories without your eyes welling with tears. You will wonder how you made it through what could only be described as the very fires of hell, but you will make it. Allow each lesson to teach you something about yourself. Allow me to change you. Become more compassionate. Become full of mercy and full of love. Don’t shut yourself off to those that haven’t filled seats in this class. They might not understand your pain, but God can use them to carry your burdens.

We will cover every topic you could ever imagine in this class, because I will affect every area of your life, but who you become as you learn, will be entirely up to you. You can allow this experience to make you bitter and resentful, or you can allow it to shape you into someone that’s cloaked in empathy and peace.

We will now tackle today’s lesson, one that I know you will need to hear more than once. One that will make you lay awake in your beds at night, when sleep seems as far away as the soul you long for.

Today, our lesson is titled…

Why?

Let’s begin.”