Grief has been with us since the beginning of time. Many of us have grieved over things or people that we have lost and there is no doubt in my mind that you have experienced this feeling too. Often times, we may be grieving but confuse it for sadness. Or, the people around you can confuse it for sadness.
I have recently gone through my own reason for grieving. I got removed from a position I really enjoyed and loved being in. The amount of people who have asked me how I have been doing, made me wonder if they think that I am more distraught than I say I am. It sparked the desire to write about grieving.
What is Grieving?
Merriam-Webster defines grieving as “to cause to suffer.”
Another word that is closely associated to this definition is the word “distress.” Distress means a couple of things but the meaning I want to focus on is “pain or suffering affecting the body, a bodily part, or the mind.” So here we can see that two words (pain and suffering) are associated with both of “Grieving” and “Distress”. Grieving is pain or suffering that has affected us. We see that grieving is a verb, so it’s an action thats committed to us. This can be so many things; take a moment and think of what would cause you to grieve. It could be the passing of a loved one, the loss of an opportunity, the loss of a pet or losing friends. Anything that would cause you any pain or suffering can cause grief.
Grief is normal, how should we feel it?
There was a popular way of discussing grief (not commonly used anymore) called “The 5 Stages Of Grief:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
We all pretty much go through some of these stages when it comes to our grief. You may not experience all of these stages or, some stages might take you longer to get through. But in order to process grief, we should be experiencing a number of these stages and work through them. The end goal is to accept your situation (whatever that situation is) and move past it. Only then can you truly move past the situation that caused your grief.
Now, if you are a believer like me, you may be thinking of grief differently.
What does Scripture say about grieving?
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
Matthew 5:4
The word “mourn” in the original Greek is the word “Pantheo”, which means to grieve (the feeling or the act.) So, Jesus is very clear that those who grieve will be comforted by the Lord. As we go through the hardships of life we will see God’s hand moving in the midst of our lives. He will be comforting us and getting us through the difficulties of life. Never be afraid of grieving because that’s when you will be comforted. Without grieving, we cannot be comforted.
For a believer, the process is to have an unfortunate circumstance occur to us, then to allow ourselves to feel it, grieve and in grieving know that we will be comforted by the Lord. Without allowing ourselves to grieve, we don’t allow ourselves to accept the comfort of God. Its almost as if we are placing more value on our feelings or circumstance than focusing on the Lord.
Now I’m not saying to not care about your feelings; what I’m saying is to not make them your only focus. Focusing solely on your feelings will lead you to have tunnel vision about the situation and what you are feeling to the point where that’s all you will think about. You will not be able to look past the situation or your feelings, potentially keeping you in the same place with the same feelings. No comfort will come from that because your grieving would just turn into sadness which would become your emotional state.
Grieve to be comforted; this is how we should live and it’s how we are blessed! I know I have grieved for a bit which looked like frustration, tears, hurt, apathy, distrust, betrayal, and anger. But in every moment of grief, I always tried to end it with prayer to the Lord and then after some time I felt the comfort from Him.