Grief

My Abba Showed Up Part 2

by Janice S Ramkissoon 
08/01/23
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"Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn" (Rom. 12:15).

I got off the train at 'Grief Station' but no one was there to show me how to grieve well. So Grief station became my permanent address. It has been my place of abode for the past 38 years. 23 years of those 38, I have been a married woman and for 20 of those years I have been a mother. 

I had just seen the news and watched the outcry of a people group who were feeling the kind of hopelessness I was feeling -- wanting change but knowing from past experience that it won’t come. Wanting to change but cannot see a way forward. Feeling trapped.

In the movie, ‘Courageous’ there is a young man who has no family except his grandmother who was not available for him in the way that he needed a parent to be there for him. She was his sole carer and had to work to provide for him. He was direction-less. He had no one guiding him.

He was doing well educationally but not being able to afford the material things he could see others with, he soon become disillusioned and began looking for illegitimate means of obtaining those material things he desired.

Eventually, he joined a gang. It didn’t end well. Whilst in handcuff, in the back of a police vehicle, one of the officers who knew of him asked the question:

“Derrek, What yuh doing? Why are you with these guys?”

 He responded:

 “I ain’t got nobody man. I Just ain’t got nobody.”

I often told myself the same. It feels real because there is no one to actually recognise that I am in need of help. Moving from one country to the next and one church group to the next, no one knew me/ knows me well enough to recognise the change taking place. They didn’t know the old Janice to understand that I was/ am in pain and crying out for help.

Learning on the journey [Time for Mind renewal]

Most of the lessons learned which helped towards healing thus far, came through parenting our son. Since becoming an adult (where my parenting role changed from caring for him and doing for him to being a mentor/advisor/friend) God then brought to my attention that I had unfinished grief business to attend to.  I wasn't prepared for what was about to take place but I remembered the words of Psalm 30:5, "...Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning." It was a comfort to me as I travelled through the process of grieving.



I was a lost sheep waiting for the Shepherd to release me from the thicket. I had slipped through the net but no one noticed. Still actively involved in ministry because I was an available vessel/body, though lost in the house.



Help wasn't coming.

No one knew me well enough to realise something was wrong.

I was taken away from the family and community I belonged to and transported to another world. It was and still is a strange, cold and unwelcoming world that I am still trying to comprehend. I never felt truly accepted and therefore never really felt connected.

I wasn't encouraged to be my authentic self. I was expected to assimilate into a culture I didn't understand and ministries I never received training for.


I realised 'waiting' was simply procrastinating and if I didn't seek divine intervention, I would die at 'Grief Station'. I needed the same kind of intervention that the man at the Pool of Bethesda needed.


I began searching for routes of exit from Grief Station, travelling from one church group to the next. That was my Pool of Bethesda. 

Continue reading in ‘My Abba Showed Up' (3)