Grieve Long, Grieve Deep (Interlude)
THE STORY
“Grieve Long, Grieve Deep (Interlude)” is a delicate little work, really only a half-song since it just has one verse and one chorus, then drops you off to go grieve on your own. It’s meant to end unrestful and give you the feeling that I never finished — which of course I didn’t. You have to finish the song by taking the dare and plunging into your own sea of tears.
On May 8, 2018 I wrote the words in Bear (the app I write in) with an attached note, “.... Just thoughts floating around in my head.” The words appeared mostly as you hear them on the record with a few exceptions I made in February of 2019.
The song is really a dare to grieve and feel your losses fully. I think we live in a culture that is bent on normalizing grief. We’ve changed funerals to “celebrations of life.” And while there is a lot of a life to be celebrated when someone dies, there is a lot of grieving to be done and tears to be shed and sorting to take place. And the mourning that happens at the edge of a six-foot crevice can hardly be called a “celebration.”
I’ve often heard, even from the platform, ministers or speakers talk about not asking the question “why,” and admonitions for refusing to “give in to doubt.”
While there is a place for trust and holding our questions in, there is also a place for doubt and a space to voice the hard questions. We can bring our doubts to an all-knowing God, we can wrestle with Him like Jacob at Penial, and He will reveal Himself to us.
While I threw the words down, I had this image in my mind of this diver being tossed about in the depths of the ocean. I saw him flailing for something solid and secure and stronger than himself. Then I saw him touching the bottom of the ocean floor and finding that which is Unshakeable, something that isn’t moved by the tossing.
It is only in the depths that the Unmovable is felt, but we often skip over that painful plummet.
I’ve spent much of my life burying myself in work or projects or other endeavors in order to avoid facing the changes or transitions I saw around me. This song came as a reminder that there are times when God strips distractions away so that we feel the shaking around us, so that we sense our own shaking (sometimes quite literal), and we come to know His unshaking faithfulness.
There are times when God strips distractions away so that we feel the shaking around us, so that we sense our own shaking and we come to know His unshaking faithfulness.
There were only two little sections of the song I changed after my initial float of words were put down. Just mostly this, “If the shaking shows us what’s Unshakable” and “In those depths you’ll prove/ The Rock that will not move.”
I wrote those lines as I scoured the depths of a world of grief I never knew would be mine. I did not hesitate to ask God the hard questions and beg, even demand, answers.
And for all the precious people who think it unwise to ask “why,” I asked that plenty of times, and was never rebuked for doing so.
I found the Rock that will not move and I challenge you to do the same.
Some have asked me why the alternate title is “Interlude.” That’s because the song is a turning point on the album (for those of you who have chosen to listen to the entire project from start to finish you might have heard this). It’s just a short half-song that is meant to dare the listener to go grieve somewhere for awhile, then brings them to the gentle reminder… “Sorrow upon sorrow… carried by my Savior.”
Go grieve awhile and find Jesus, kneeling in a Garden alone, carrying what you can’t carry.
THE SONG
If our suffering forces us
To sit in silence and hear the heartfelt sobs
Of our Savior
If our pain puts us in our place
Pushes us to come face to face
With our Redeemer
If the heartaches known just to us
Hem us in and humble us and we come to know
Our wounded Healer
Then the pain was not prescribed in vain
If the shaking
Shows us what’s unshakable
So grieve long, grieve deep
Let the sorrow soak inside you
Let your tears roll like the sea
And feel it all, close out the world
Dive into the unknowns of your shaking world
And in those depths you’ll prove
The Rock that will not move
So grieve long, grieve deep
Words & music by Merilee Barnard © 2019
Morganne Pickett suggested an edit in the music at line 10 - thank you!
Started May 8, 2018. Finished February 18, 2019.