| In the early days of grieving, we can't conceive of the thought that someday the pain will pass into a modicum of living as usual. In fact, we do well just to get from one day to the next, one day at a time, never mind the rest of our lives, without the loved one we lost. So in the months and possibly years that have passed, the question poses itself: WHAT NOW? So, what now. Not a question, but a statement. Looking back, how did you manage to progress thus far and how will you go on into your future? Some of the ways that we got through the initial shock, disbelief, denial, anger, and hopefully, acceptance, are just by getting up, going on, going to bed, and repeating the process daily. Hopefully, there has been something or someone that was the motivation for us to do that. Another way is having people who have cared for us, who were there to encourage us to grieve, yes, but to try to go on with whatever we had to do...we HAD to do to survive. It could be a neighbor, a trusted long time friend, a church, a job and friends there, or just the sheer willpower to get on with life. It sometimes is all to easy to just go to bed, cover over our heads and try to forget the world and our pain. I have found that most who are faced with tragedy, no matter what form it may take, turn immediately to God, because He is the only one who can understand how deeply we are aggrieved. He is the only one who doesn't need an explanation for the moaning and crying out, yes, and even the cursing, that we all did in our midnight hours, or driving down the road alone to go...to anywhere just to get away from the scene of our "normal" lives that are far from normal anymore. One of the most healing ways to recover from grief is to talk, and talk, and talk, and..., but more than just talk to hear ourselves vent, we need to talk to someone who has some inkling of what we are experiencing in our trial. I spoke readily with a young flight attendant on a Southwest Airline plane about my grief for my son. She initiated the conversation because of the sadness in my face. We have become very good friends. We never know where a "soul friend" will enter our lives. I call those events serendipity, those wonderful events which cannot be planned or even expected, but when they happen, everyone is uplifted by them. Be watchful for serendipity in your life. The most important person we can count on is Jesus Christ to hear us when we cry out, understand us when we don't even understand ourselves, to comfort us when no one else can and be there for us, even when we fail to call out to Him. All of Life is a great mystery. God is a great mystery. If you think about it, we, ourselves, are great mysteries. When we are born, we do not know exactly what our lives will be made up of, and we are not promised by God smooth and even existences without pain or troubles. What we are promised is limited time on the earth, then if we accept Jesus as our personal saviour, eternal life with God, The Father in Heaven. When something happens to not go the way WE expect, we are angry, disappointed, sad. How dare anything interfere with the way WE think things should be going. We look for someone, or something to blame. But of course, if we blame anyone living, we have to explain our anger to them and live with the consequences of our outburst - for a reason that blamed person has no idea of. And doesn't that sound ridiculous? To blame the family of a deceased person, or blame a disease for taking a deceased person, a disease which has no intellect or feeling or persona, or a situation which is an inanimate thing with no capability of acting or even reacting? Only we humans do that. Of course, we can acknowledge that those are absolutely insane thoughts when examined in the light of day. But when we are hurting, grieving, lost, we are a little insane, or certainly not thinking very rationally. And because we know in our hearts that we cannot blame anything or anyone for our pain, if we are Christ-loving people, we MUST go to God the Father for comfort. If we truly listen to His answers to our prayers and pleadings, He will tell us that our lives are for HIM to control, not us; that He never promised us anything but a limited number of days in our mortal lives, and that if we put our trust and faith in Him, He will give us eternal lives with Him in Heaven. He knows the pain of suffering, of losing someone He loved so dearly, One who was so pure and clean that He was the Perfict Gift to making for their sins. Could any of us freely give our loved ones for any price to gain anything at all? Without a second of hesitation, we would all say NO! In fact, can any of us say that we knew when we married a person whom we loved dearly and deeply, or gave birth to a child, we were planning on giving them up for any reason at all? Absolutely not! But that, in fact, is exactly what God promised us when we were born: Nothing in this life is in our control. Sure, we go through our daily lives making plans, working, living just as though we were in control, and to some extent we are. Our lives take on regular patterns and we are comfortable with them as long as there are no interruptions to what we EXPECT from those routines. But God never told us there wouldn't be interruptions. He never told us we could never be fired from our jobs, lose our homes in disasters, lose our health to some disease, or even our faith in Him. What He did promise us is that He is The Rock, He is All powerful, all forgiving, all loving, all faithful, all merciful. He is Everything. And if we trust and accept Him, we will be comforted by Him. So when it comes to living with mortal pain and disappointment, we must know in our hearts that we are living out His plan for us, the greatest mystery of all, and praise Him more. He is the only One who can truly understand and comfort us. He is the only One who will NEVER leave us. He is our ONLY comfort and solace. He is the One who gave to us the dear one whom we lost. For they were never "Ours", they were always God's. He just took them back home before he did us. Praise God. |
| Grief Recovery © Betty Sue Eaton |
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| A Christian Grief Ministry |
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