The total solar eclipse that arced its way through my city somehow managed to sneak up on my family. This is especially laughable considering that the spectacle is said to happen in a particular location only once every 330 years. We had well over 300 years to prepare for this phenomenon. Yet there we were, hours before the big event, playing extreme Tetris with our calendars and ransacking our town for last-minute eclipse glasses.

Amidst the chaos, one of my children suddenly came down with a stomach sickness while another managed to crash our family car. Don’t worry, no children were harmed in the making of this story. After an eleventh-hour deep search on the internet to locate an obscure park away from crowds and traffic, we finally arrived at an eclipse viewing haven.

The air was spring-warm in Ohio and the skies were idyllically blue. We settled into our lawn chairs, put on our back-to-the-future-like eyewear, and peered up into the heavens to behold the impending solar miracle. With only one small cloud dotting the sky, we felt grateful to be caught up in the moment, despite all it took to get there.

Grateful, until exactly one minute before eclipse totality when a random gust of wind managed to blow one lone cloud directly in front of the shadowing sun. It is a majestic thing to witness a total solar eclipse, at least so I’ve been told. It’s quite another thing to witness a cloud eclipsing a total solar eclipse.

This semi-comical yet tragic incident came to mind while reflecting on Stages' title track. In the song, Steph laments, “It’s not supposed to be like this.” With these words, she pulls us into the ache of lament. The grief she sings of takes place within the throes of a deteriorating marriage. My grief was caused more simply by missing out on a once in a lifetime solar show. No doubt, the latter is far less painful. But in both cases, the beauty and joy we expected to experience got suffocated by the inevitable clouds of life.

Grief is that ache that shows up when life’s large and small moments don’t deliver; when our hearts can say little else other than, “This is not really happening.” We all know at some level life is not all it is supposed to be. It’s when the clouds roll in at the most inopportune moments that we are forced to really wrestle with that reality. The experience of grief reminds our heart to lament at such times. Rightly considered, even our greatest days are never cloudless.

Today, grief is bound to eclipse your story in some inevitable way. When it does, if you pay your heart attention, you will sense it instinctively reaching for a lament. You don’t have to sing it like Steph is able to do. But it sure will help to call a safe person and name it. Doing so has a way of mysteriously manifesting an eclipse of its own kind: our healing moving in on our loss. The good news is, this is one phenomenon you don’t have to wait 330 years to see happen.

Contributed by: Brian Mease


Scripture: 

Romans 8:22-23a (NLT)
“For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering.”

Reflection Song:

“this is not really happening”