Blu-e
Not the animation character — A Check-in with Grief
I really love this song by Stella Jang called Colors. It has a very soothing and catchy rhythm. My confession is that today is the first time I ever watched the music video and I think I just may have fallen deeper in love with the brilliance. But I didn’t come to gush about Stella’s music. I came to open a wound to see how well it has healed or not.
Today, at exactly 3:52 PM makes it six months since I got one of the most numbing news of my life. I am a very sensitive person. If you like, believe all the hard guy persona you see outside, that’s your business. There are so many embarrassing videos of the woman who gave birth to me saying so in vibrant and colourful terms. The evidence is overwhelming.
As a sensitive person, growing up as a Christian minority in northern Nigeria, I became quite familiar with the abruptness of death and even sadly, the brutality with which it meets saints where I’m from. In 2010, I went through the (ESM?) Dogo na Hauwa 7 March Massacre magazine documentary from cover to cover, examining each body and crying about every soul murdered. I’ve known people who lost their lives to the most mundane and curable diseases. As a child raised in a mission-minded home, I was well aware of the harsh realities converts and even believers in clustered communities faced. Working in the community in Jebbu Miango brought even closer what living in Jos had already unlocked in me. Grief is not a cloak I am new to wearing.
For a long time, every hashtag of #StopthekillingsinPlateau came from teary eyes and shaky fingers. I would lie on the floor and cry to God for hours sometimes until I drifted off to sleep. The anguish was real regardless of the community — be it B/Ladi, Bokkos, Mangu, Tafawa Balewa, Miango, Zangon Kataf or Gidan Waya. Yes, I have danced in circles where death is not an uncommon visitor. If you say it is because we do not confess death away or we are weak in our use of words, I’ll invite you to live among us for a month and tell me what you think. There are nuances and I am learning every day that each region/territory has its climate and vices. Travelling is one thing I am thankful for. It always breaks the echo chamber and expands worldviews but I digress.
All this exposure did not prepare me for the above text or how it rocked my world. I’m certain when my parents first heard me crying that afternoon, they presumed I was praying but my heavens when the wailing took a deeper note, my mother rushed in.
I have never felt such agony in my life. Words can not express the million and one feelings of confusion, hurt, pain, betrayal (yes, I felt like God betrayed me), sadness, hopelessness, and disbelief that slammed into me at once. I have grieved before. In fact, one of the most static features in my adult life has been grief. It was here I started learning what joy in suffering meant. I lost Gwagwa and I was too numbed by shock to do much. Chante was snuffed in such a quick and unbelievably wasteful way, I was angry. Joy. I did not understand why Joy had to go and I was putting up a bold face of faith but I was broken. My faith was dying a thousand deaths every morning and I started subtly questioning if this Father of mine is really truly, purely and always good.
My former colleagues followed Joy’s news in quick succession. One to a misdiagnosed sickness and a compounding cancelled surgery in Koler Bu hospital (Ghana and Nigeria are twins fr fr) and the other murdered in her home mysteriously. For what I will call the worst year of my adult life, I was wearing the thick raiment of grief in 2023. I pretended Icould carry it but like a wet double-layered fur blanket in the cold Arewa harmattan, it was too heavy and dangerous for me to bear. I held unto it until I broke.
How did I get here? This was supposed to be a short episode. But I guess the Lord wants his grieving children to know this. — (PS I just cried hot tears for 30 secs because I accidentally deleted everything in the above paragraphs and I didn’t even have the strength to start writing my heart again. God Bless Medium developers for allowing us to recover lost work.)
My heart has been bruised and bandaged many times over but in this season of unimaginable pain, I have come to know what Jesus meant when He promised us a Comforter. Brethren, there is so much pain in this world. And for feelers like myself, we cannot ignore it. We create from it, we pray from it, we live from it. So we have to sit in all the feelings — good, bad and ugly. But there is this one sweet hack I didn’t try until now.
Tell it to Jesus. Like a child who bruises their knee while riding a bicycle and runs to their daddy/mummy. You know the wound is bright red with blood and obviously, it hurts, but crying out and saying “it hurts” is an act of trust and dependence that your caregiver can heal it. can make it better. Yes, they can see the wound and they know it hurts but do you feel safe enough to wail and whine and be a baby? Do you trust God enough to free-fall knowing He’ll catch you? One of my dad’s favourite scriptures is Deut 33:27a and on my last birthday, he sent it to me alongside his prayers for me. I have been chewing it and it started making sense on the 20th of January 2024.
If the eternal God is my refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms, my Lord is telling me I am doubly held. In His refuge is my utmost security. I picture it to be a safe house far away tucked at the peak of the highest mountain. Unreachable/ But even in the safe house where no danger can reach me, I may be a danger unto myself and fall off the cliff of that mountain. I may wander from the safety and try a bungee jump with no ropes. And God is saying even then, underneath that refuge are the everlasting arms. I cannot fall. He’ll always catch me.
For the hurting, grieving saints, Tell it to Jesus. I know it sounds cliché but we try to be adults with God and that’s why we’re stuck. No amount of spiritual maturity will make you grow from a child of God to an adult of God. Even sons need fathering. Weep and claw, murmur and groan even. Make sure you say everything — including the scandalous thoughts of doubting Him and his goodness. Stay in there and let the hope we have as an anchor for our souls bring you to shore.
So like Stella’s song, I could be any colour of emotion and today I am feeling blue for my purple girl. But I am also like that song constantly in motion so keeping up with my emotions can be a herculean task. I don’t have words to say to those who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus except I am deeply sorry for your loss and I pray you find comfort and rest. He’s truly all I know and I know it works.
My prayer is for those who have lost someone, even if it is a part of yourself. May you know God as a Comforter. May your struggles keep you near the cross. May your troubles show that you need God. May your battles end the way they should. May your whole life prove that God is good. — Johnathan McReynolds — God is Good
All my love, hurting and healing,
Ballie💖
