One of the most important things we need to learn is how to grieve. Grieving is the ability to recognize and mourn the losses we have experienced. God has given us the ability to grieve. If any of us have lost a family member through death, we may have grieved that loss.
Problems arise within us when we experience losses in our lives, but do not grieve those losses. Instead of grieving, we allow ourselves to become hardened inside. As a result, we react to those things in the wrong way. We become resentful and angry about them. We do not recognize the hurt, pain and loss, and we do not allow the Lord to minister to us in those areas.
Society has told us a lie we believe to be true. We were told that men don't cry; therefore brave little boys don't cry if they want to become men. A man should not show hurt or emotion, or pain. But that is a lie.
We need to see, from a Biblical standpoint, what grieving is, and Jesus Christ is our model. Matthew 14:13: Now when Jesus heard it, He withdrew from there in a boat, to a lonely place by Himself... Jesus went to a place where He could be alone to grieve for John the Baptist who had been beheaded by Herod.
John 11:33-36: When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her, also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have you laid him?' They said to Him, 'Lord, come and see.' Jesus wept. And so the Jews were saying, 'Behold how He loved him. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, for He was grieved in His spirit.
It becomes a major problem with us when we don't allow ourselves to express the sorrow we feel. We don't realize that if we will be open and honest with God, He will heal us in those areas of our lives. As we bring these things to the light of Christ, He is able to minister His healing to us.
Many of the things that hurt us in our lives have been jammed into the inner recesses of our minds with the hope that they will be forgotten. What we don't realize is that these things continue to affect us in our reactions to the events and the people we encounter daily. We need to learn how to be honest, how to bring out the emotions, and how to grieve about them. As we allow them to surface, God begins a process in us that gives us insight and wisdom about them. The healing can then take place.
One obstacle to our healing is that when we are hurt, we are able to see only our side of the situation. We are unable to see the situation from God's side. This means we are unable to see the whole picture, we see only one side of it.
When we grieve, we usually need the presence of another person to help us. It isn't necessary for that person to tell us whether we are right or wrong, or to set boundaries for us. He only needs to listen to us.
There is one danger in grieving. We can become caught up in it and never allow ourselves to get out. If we are caught up in grieving, we become very depressed. We find ourselves filled with self -pity and self-condemnation. There is a legitimate time for grieving but there is definitely a time to move on.
There are six stages of grief which usually manifest themselves in the following sequence:
1. Denial
We simply do not want to accept the misfortune.
2. Bargaining with God
If God will restore or repair or replace what we are grieving about, we will do whatever He wants.
3. Anger
We are totally undeserving of what has happened and we feel we have been treated unfairly. This justifies our anger.
4. Acceptance
We accept that it happened, and we concede that we can do nothing about it.
5. Grief of the loss
We become honest about our feelings, share those feelings with others and allow ourselves to be healed.
6 Resolution
We resolve to pick up the pieces and get on with life.
If we share our thoughts and emotions in each of these stages with the Lord, and receive the input He offers us, we will move readily through each phase, into resolution. We will then be able to lay aside our loss and go on. If we should get stuck at any point, it is important that we get someone to help us through.
The most effective way in which to grieve is to grieve one loss at a time. We may have a tendency to look into our past and see all the hurt, pain, and abuse, and say, "I can't handle all that, Lord!" It would be like having all the food we were going to eat for the entire week, lined up on some tables. It would be overwhelming to think that we had to eat all that food at one time. The fact is, we eat the food one meal at a time. And that is the way we should grieve, one loss at a time.
The proper way to grieve is to let the Lord show us which incidents He wants us to deal with, and the order in which He wants us to handle them. It becomes a process, so we don't have the overwhelming sensation that we could never get through it. In the grieving process, we want to be honest about how each incident affected us, and the hurt and pain each caused.
We also want to be honest about our sinful reactions. There are three principles we have violated in our reactions to what people have done to us.
1. Judgment.
We are told in scripture we are not to judge, lest we be judged.
2. Honoring our father and our mother.
If we do not, our life will not go well with us.
3. Sowing and Reaping.
When we plant seeds, we can expect to reap a harvest.
We will discuss these reactions in depth in later sessions.
Session Five . . . Grieving
Personal And Group Exercise (see page 110)
1. Why is it important for us to learn how to grieve?
2. What happens to us when we do not grieve about our hurts, pains and losses?
3. In what way do our hidden emotions affect our relationship with others in our daily walk?
4. Why is it important for us to be able to see both sides of a painful situation?
5. Why is it important for us not to continue too long in our grieving?
6. What is the proper way in which to involve the Lord in our grieving?