Grief affects different people different ways; so be careful not to size up the grief by appearance. It’s a time for giving one another a wide berth and much compassion, not judgment. Someone who seems unaffected by loss may be in fact be hurting deeply. Our personalities are unique and so are our coping mechanisms.
And when it happens to you, grieve; it’s natural and healthy. But…when grief begins to subside or lessen its grip on you, LET IT LIFT (even if it’s sooner than you expected) and don’t let the devil make you feel guilty for letting that season pass. Recognize that the overwhelming, smothering, most raw kind of grief is not meant to stay always. Just as a burned-out forest eventually sees sprouts of green pushing up through the ashes, you are meant to keep living!
Recovering from a loss does not mean you didn’t love that person enough; recovering does, to the contrary, do honor to his or her memory by allowing hope and healing to bloom in the vacant place. Grieving oneself to death is not meant to happen and it isn’t a testament of your love for the person you’ve lost.
If you should wind up in a downward spiral or are inordinately long in the place of grief and cannot seem to shake yourself free, please, please seek grief counseling. How long is too long? I think you’ll feel it even if your initial response is to resist healing. There is a balance somewhere down the road where you can reserve a healthy level of sadness over a loss but it can no longer drown out your desire to live.
My prayer for each of you today is that God will comfort and bless you through your seasons of sorrow. May He grant you courage to keep living and to keep finding beauty and gratitude. If you don’t have a relationship with Him, I pray that you will be open to discover that His love is the most important love you’ll ever encounter; and that His healing presence will sustain and renew you through even the most traumatic life experience.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and he saves those whose spirits have been crushed.” (Psalm 34:18 NCV)
CALL THOSE THINGS 