Breathe AgainSample

Going on a Bear Hunt

When our kids were little we loved the book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. It’s the humorous story of a family on an adventure to find a bear. Along the way they encounter all sorts of obstacles. With each one we would join the chorus, shouting, “We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!” before acting out squelching through the oozy mud or stumbling and tripping through the forest. Once we found the bear, we’d turn and run back through the cave, the storm, the forest, the mud, and the river before collapsing in a heap of giggles. 

This simple yet profound story whispers a truth we’d rather ignore when life sweeps us out to sea. Yet, no matter how much we stick our fingers in our ears and scream, “La la la la la! I can’t hear you!” this truth remains: we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we have to go through it. There’s no quick fix. No getting around it. 

So we might as well embrace it. 

When we do the hard work of grieving, forgiving, or just admitting that life stinks right now, we find moments of peace where there was once only anguish, flashes of hope in the darkness, and joy snuggling in with our pain as our wounds begin to heal. 

Embracing the journey is a gift because it’s there we meet God. Allowing ourselves to experience the breadth of our painful emotions is the only way through them and on to the waiting healing. 

If we are to breathe again in the midst of our mess, however imperfectly, we mustn’t circumvent the healing process, no matter how much we’d like to. When we live with the pain of an unfair story, we grieve the lack of a happy ending. Yet if we rush to the end, our lives and our healing aren’t nearly as rich as God intends. We must grieve to grow, and grieving the loss of our could-have-beens always helps us breathe. Because where we are right now is often both the last place we want to be and the very place we need to be to uncover God’s fullness in our lives.

What happy ending that hasn’t happened do you need to grieve in your life right now?