Help for the Grieving
Sometimes people ask me what words you can offer to those who are grieving. Our church and school community has suffered two great losses recently: a young teenager who died in an accident and a beloved teacher who died prematurely of cancer.
I have lost a four year old son and a twenty year old younger brother. I know what it feels like to grieve deeply. But the truth is, I don't know what to say to grieving people. I can feel sad with them, write them a card with some meager words expressing sadness at their loss, bring a meal, etc., but I think the dilemma is that there really are no magic words. What grieving people need is empathy and for someone to "get" how they're feeling and that requires emotional effort on the part of the good friend. It's not figuring out the perfect thing to say, it's adopting a posture of love and respect that says, "I love you and I have no idea what you are going through, but I'm going to work hard to show up for you both emotionally and physically. You are free to rage at the world and at God and just know I'm not letting go of you."
This is a pretty tall order. This isn't just saying a quick phrase that shows how spiritual you are or how much you trust God for them. This is self-sacrificing, non-judgmental, present love, and not many people can do this well (myself included).
Thinking back on the time after Joseph died, I had four friends who were these kinds of friends to me. I was incredibly blessed. Many people don't have one friend like this, and many of the friends you think will stick by your side forever completely disappear.
We live in a culture that values resilience, positive outlooks, efficiency, and energy. When you are grieving, you feel like you have physical weights on your shoulders weighing you down. You feel defeated, lonely, unfocused, and completely depleted of energy. Super fun to be around, right? Well, you are right. It's not "fun" to be around a grieving friend, but neither is it fun to be a grieving person. Hence the loneliness.
When you are grieving, you feel completely alone. You feel NO-ONE could possibly understand how crushed you are feeling. EVERYONE else is getting up in the morning, getting dressed, doing their normal routine, and you are wondering just how you are going to take the next step. How in the world are you going to care for your children, go to your job and be normal, go to the store and not break down and weep, or just function as a normal person? You cry at the most inopportune times and often it takes even you completely by surprise. Because you feel so unpredictable, social situations, especially church, feel incredibly scary. Church is where most people are smiling and look pretty, and you just want to stay in bed and cry.
You also feel like you are a different person, and other people feel the same way about you. "She used to be so perky and happy-go-lucky. She's changed." They feel like they have lost their friend because you are so different. But you feel like you've lost yourself and a lot of your friends. Grieving friends need gentle friends who don't judge how they are dealing with their grief--for a long time. Grief is on no schedule and just because it's been a year or two years or ten years doesn't mean you are over missing your loved one. You will always miss someone you love who has gone to heaven.
Grief is lonely and very self-focused. You are nursing a gaping wound and of course you need time to heal and just feel injured.
However, the grieving person also at some point also has to make a change. Grief, if left to its own natural course, will become a slippery slope of self-pity. If I'm going to be completely honest it took me about three years (that's just me, for some it might be sooner or for some longer) to really take a sincere interest in how others were doing. I am not saying this is right, I'm just being honest. (See, I had awesome friends.) But at some point, the grieving person has to say, "God still has me here on earth for a reason. He can use my hurt to help others or I can wallow in self-pity for the rest of my life." I didn't want to be a bitter, self-absorbed, wounded person for the rest of my life. God graciously allowed us to become friends with Nancy and David Guthrie (who have lost two children). We attended their respite retreat for grieving parents and it was a true turning point in our grief and our healing. Through them and the other couples on the retreat I was encouraged to trust God with my loss and ask Him to heal my heart in the way only He can. He is a gentle shepherd who really does "get" our suffering and loss. He became human so that in every way He could sympathize with our weakness. To see other grieving parents doing this in the face of such a great loss was a huge encouragement to both me and Allen.
Grieving people need gentle and loyal friends, not just the perfect words (because they do not exist). It takes great patience to be a good friend to a grieving person, and only the Holy Spirit in us can help us be these kinds of friends. They need praying friends, who will lift up their friends to the only One who can bring true healing to their hearts.
I have lost a four year old son and a twenty year old younger brother. I know what it feels like to grieve deeply. But the truth is, I don't know what to say to grieving people. I can feel sad with them, write them a card with some meager words expressing sadness at their loss, bring a meal, etc., but I think the dilemma is that there really are no magic words. What grieving people need is empathy and for someone to "get" how they're feeling and that requires emotional effort on the part of the good friend. It's not figuring out the perfect thing to say, it's adopting a posture of love and respect that says, "I love you and I have no idea what you are going through, but I'm going to work hard to show up for you both emotionally and physically. You are free to rage at the world and at God and just know I'm not letting go of you."
This is a pretty tall order. This isn't just saying a quick phrase that shows how spiritual you are or how much you trust God for them. This is self-sacrificing, non-judgmental, present love, and not many people can do this well (myself included).
Thinking back on the time after Joseph died, I had four friends who were these kinds of friends to me. I was incredibly blessed. Many people don't have one friend like this, and many of the friends you think will stick by your side forever completely disappear.
We live in a culture that values resilience, positive outlooks, efficiency, and energy. When you are grieving, you feel like you have physical weights on your shoulders weighing you down. You feel defeated, lonely, unfocused, and completely depleted of energy. Super fun to be around, right? Well, you are right. It's not "fun" to be around a grieving friend, but neither is it fun to be a grieving person. Hence the loneliness.
When you are grieving, you feel completely alone. You feel NO-ONE could possibly understand how crushed you are feeling. EVERYONE else is getting up in the morning, getting dressed, doing their normal routine, and you are wondering just how you are going to take the next step. How in the world are you going to care for your children, go to your job and be normal, go to the store and not break down and weep, or just function as a normal person? You cry at the most inopportune times and often it takes even you completely by surprise. Because you feel so unpredictable, social situations, especially church, feel incredibly scary. Church is where most people are smiling and look pretty, and you just want to stay in bed and cry.
You also feel like you are a different person, and other people feel the same way about you. "She used to be so perky and happy-go-lucky. She's changed." They feel like they have lost their friend because you are so different. But you feel like you've lost yourself and a lot of your friends. Grieving friends need gentle friends who don't judge how they are dealing with their grief--for a long time. Grief is on no schedule and just because it's been a year or two years or ten years doesn't mean you are over missing your loved one. You will always miss someone you love who has gone to heaven.
Grief is lonely and very self-focused. You are nursing a gaping wound and of course you need time to heal and just feel injured.
However, the grieving person also at some point also has to make a change. Grief, if left to its own natural course, will become a slippery slope of self-pity. If I'm going to be completely honest it took me about three years (that's just me, for some it might be sooner or for some longer) to really take a sincere interest in how others were doing. I am not saying this is right, I'm just being honest. (See, I had awesome friends.) But at some point, the grieving person has to say, "God still has me here on earth for a reason. He can use my hurt to help others or I can wallow in self-pity for the rest of my life." I didn't want to be a bitter, self-absorbed, wounded person for the rest of my life. God graciously allowed us to become friends with Nancy and David Guthrie (who have lost two children). We attended their respite retreat for grieving parents and it was a true turning point in our grief and our healing. Through them and the other couples on the retreat I was encouraged to trust God with my loss and ask Him to heal my heart in the way only He can. He is a gentle shepherd who really does "get" our suffering and loss. He became human so that in every way He could sympathize with our weakness. To see other grieving parents doing this in the face of such a great loss was a huge encouragement to both me and Allen.
Grieving people need gentle and loyal friends, not just the perfect words (because they do not exist). It takes great patience to be a good friend to a grieving person, and only the Holy Spirit in us can help us be these kinds of friends. They need praying friends, who will lift up their friends to the only One who can bring true healing to their hearts.
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