grief

Shortly after Mark passed, a friend of mine gave my information to their church pastoral ministry. I was sent a series of four books on grief and there was some really good information in them. Here is one of the things I read.

Myths on Grief: (these are just a few that are listed)

1.     People with a strong faith don’t grieve.

a.     I seem to remember the shortest verse in the Bible that says, Jesus wept. He was grieved for the people who were mourning Lazarus’s death.

b.     David in the book of Psalm wept and grieved over so many things and he was a man after God’s own heart. I know he had faith.

c.     Job tore his clothes in grief, and covered himself in ashes as he mourned his losses.

2.     A strong person should be able to get through a loss without showing any emotion; crying is a sign of weakness. (Keeping things bottled up and never expressing what we are feeling, in a healthy way, can lead to bitterness, anger and health issues)

3.     Christians shouldn’t grieve if they know their loved one is in Heaven. They should only feel joy. (Sorry, not true! 1 Thes. 4:13-14 we grieve but not like those who have no hope; we have the hope that we will see them again, but we still grieve the loss here)

4.     Continuing to talk about the person who dies only makes the pain last longer. (For me to not talk about my husband or those I have lost takes away from all the good they brought to my life and the precious memories I have. I don’t ever want to lose that.)

5.     After a loved one dies, you can never be happy again. (Oh, my goodness I hope not. It is ok to be sad that they are gone but as time goes by you learn that if you have true joy in your heart that you can be happy also; and it’s ok to be happy.)

While I don’t believe any of that is true, after all that is why they call them myths, there are those who do believe some of those to be true. To each their own is what I say. That is why grief is so weird, in my opinion, and can be so hard to deal with at times. Maybe weird isn’t the right word but it feels that way at times, at least it does to me.

 Some statements I have heard about grief:

I believe the hardest part of healing after you’ve lost someone you love, is to recover the “you” that went with them.

Grief never ends…but it changes. It’s a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith…it’s the price of love.

Where there is deep grief, there was great love.

The irony of grief is that the person you need to talk to about how you feel is the person that is no longer here.

It’s ok to not be ok. Grief is a journey everyone travels at their own pace.

The pain of grief is worth every moment of knowing you.

A year or so after Mark passed I attended a support group called GriefShare. There are classes all over the United States and the world. I sat there over a 13-week period and learned even more about grief. Yes, I knew most of the information and how to deal with my grief, but it was so helpful to listen to other’s stories. There were stories of those who lost their spouse, children, parents, friends, and family members. There were those who lost loved ones quickly and never got the chance to say goodbye and those who had to watch their loved one fade over time. There were those who lost their loved one to murder and suicide. So many losses but at the core they all had something in common, grief. Go find a class if you haven’t already attended. You won’t be sorry.  

Grief is ok to have, and we will all deal with it at some point in our lives. What you do with it is what can make or break you. Don’t let it break you. It has been said that grief is like waves of the ocean, they come and go. At times it is calm and other times turbulent. Let it make you a stronger version of who you were and ask God to use it for His glory and good.

I read this a few months ago and it resonated with me. I hope it does for you too.

You can shed tears because they are gone, or you can smile because they lived. You can close your eyes and pray they will come back, or you can open your eyes and see all they left you.

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see them, or you can be full of the love you shared. You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday, or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday. You can remember only that they are gone, or you can cherish their memory and let it live on. You can cry and close your mind and feel empty, or you can do what they would want. Smile, open your heart, love, and go on.

 Confident in His love

Isaiah 54:10