I lost my father, my friend, my mentor, my kid’s grandpa, and one of the biggest cheerleaders in my life just over two months ago. I was there when dad took his last breath on this earth, and with that final exhale, there was a palpable sense of dad’s spirit leaving his earthly body. We could see it, we could feel it.

My dad’s death left what has felt like a vast, gaping, dark hole in my soul. It’s as though his death tore something from me. And when his spirit departed with that final breath, it took something of mine with his. The loss has left me vulnerable, shaken, despairing at times, knocked off of dead center.

However, I’m coming to realize that my dad’s death didn’t create this vast and vacuous space in my soul; it just got me in touch with it. This vacuous space has been there all along. When life is working, there’s less to force any of us to get in touch with the need of our own soul and to allow its cries to be heard.

My soul, your soul, wants and needs to be empty. It’s the starting point for all that truly matters.

One of my favorite scriptures is from Genesis 1:1-3.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness. And the Spirit of God was hovering over it’s surface.

From there, that place of emptiness, the creation story begins to take shape. The new begins to emerge and come alive.

In my moments of deepest grief, my soul has felt like that empty, formless mass cloaked in the darkness that the creation story speaks of.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over it’s surface.

And now I am slowly waking up to the gift of the Spirit hovering over my soul, gently showing up, moving in closer. In a very embryonic way, I am aware of the Spirit bringing light to the darkness and giving shape to something new, wider, deeper and more expansive.

And somehow in the midst of the grief and loss, gratitude is beginning to dance around the edges. This must also be the movement of the Spirit.

Gratitude can and does co-exist with great loss and pain. I am grateful that this loss isn’t the final word and that the pain is being transformed. I am experiencing gratitude for the Spirit who hovers over the emptiness within and brings forth a beautiful new creation if we allow it to be. And most of all, I am grateful that this is not all for nothing.

Somehow, in the midst of our tears, a gift is hidden. Somehow, in the midst of our mourning, the first steps of the dance take place. Somehow, the cries that well up from our losses belong to our songs of gratitude.

Henri Nouwen

You, too, have probably experienced some kind of loss that has left a void in your own soul. Maybe a loss of a dream or a hope you had for someone or something. Perhaps a loss of a career, a person you loved, a marriage, or even part of yourself. Maybe your loss is that you never had the kind of relationship with a parent that I have. Know that in the void that comes from your loss, whatever it is, the Spirit hovers over you and is birthing something wider, deeper and more expansive in you too. Your part, my part, is to simply breath Yes to that which wants to wake up and come alive in us.

I write this because I don’t want to forget this season, move on too soon, or try to get over my dad’s death as quickly as possible, which I may be prone to do. I want this loss to transform me, fully and deeply. And this is my hope and prayer for you as well in your own places of loss.