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There is an old joke that goes, "How do you eat an elephant?"

"I don't know, how do you?"

"One bite at a time."

The not-so-hidden truth in here can be applied to so many things—projects, goals, ginormous meals. But today, I'm going to talk about how I have found this true when tackling emotional hardship.*

*No elephants were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Two years later, we are still completely humbled when we consider the massive wave of support we received when Levi died. I am convinced that the support of our community through that first difficult year had a good deal to do with the progress we made in our healing. Yes, the work of grief must be done on an individual basis. But knowing that we were never alone had a significant impact on how brave we were in approaching that work.

I know that sunflowers think their job is to propagate their species by creating seeds. But today? It was to teach me that even when we've been hammered by life, and everything seems wretched, and we are broken all over the ground, we can still be beautiful.

Bitter or better? We can choose how we heal from loss. It's all in what we focus on.

Every day is another step forward. Every day, grief morphs and whirls and changes into a different shape, like dancing aurora borealis. And lately, I have been surprised by joy.

When everything extraneous has been stripped from your life by a loss, and you are left naked and broken, sometimes just getting your pants on in the morning is a big deal. But you look for those moments that you see progress, too. Moving forward, whether in small steps, or giant leaps--in the end, that's the only thing I can really ask of myself.

Are we in control of our destiny? Or is God? And who is to blame when things go wrong?

Can we look backward and move forward at the same time?

Even though I don't understand the reason, I still believe. Like Job, I choose to believe despite the uncertainty. And because I choose to believe, my grief is changing me for the good.

Being human is hard. There is so much pain involved in this thing called "life." But it is also joyful. What makes life easier is walking this road with other humans, and sharing those experiences of joy and pain with each other.

But there is a time and place for everything.

On Wednesday, I found I was grieving all the things that Levi will not get to do that I wanted him to be able to do. I find that writing songs helps me deal with very stressful and emotional topics, so I wrote "Things I'll Never Do". Here is a quick scratch recording on a video for this song.

Levi's eulogy was the most difficult thing I have ever had to write. Not because I didn't know what I wanted to say, because I did.

Sharing Levi's eulogy was the most difficult thing that Jason has ever had to do. But he did.

God gave us both the strength to share the story of this precious little man with those at his funeral yesterday. For those that were unable to attend, I am posting it here.

Grief is a funny thing.

One day, you can be perfectly fine, feel like you have accepted your loss, and that life will once again be wonderful to live.

The next day, you can be on the verge (or beyond it) of tears at every waking moment.

Crisis is hard. Grief hurts. But I would much rather be a strong, tall sunflower, or an intricate and complex bonsai, each a masterpiece of beauty, than a poor, coddled sprout that dies young in the luxury of inadversity.