Resources for Living with Grief
Grieving is passage through the space between what we used to know and love and when we can know and love again. No one ever enters this space gently or by choice; grief comes to us in ways that feel like being hit with a brick or hurled into an abyss.
Friends, we have started talking about what we are experiencing, the social separation, the effect COVID has had on life the way we knew it, disorienting, frightening, stunning, and we are trying to figure out ways to manage our feelings which we still feel. We had no idea it would go on this long and we have no idea how to navigate our way through it. Grief. The thing about denying feelings we don’t like is they seem to find a way to come out.
A lot of people say very odd things about grief and so I am going to spend a few days dispelling and clearing out some of the mythology around grieving. I don’t really want to offend anyone, but here goes. There is no such thing as and you are not in a process of grief.
The message of Psalm 23 is that the only thing that makes a difference in the valley of the shadow of death is presence. Today I invite you to look back at other times you have been in a rough patch. Darkness did not conquer you and you were not alone.
Sometimes we can see the presence of God in another person. Presence makes a difference. And noticing how God is present to us can be helpful as we think about inviting someone to be present with us in our grief, or us being present with someone in theirs.
Grief is overwhelming, and it is easy to confuse our attempts to manage our own discomfort with grief, for help. One of the most effective ways people who feel out of control can feel in control is to say helpful words, giving advice.
Grief is like deep fog that invades our existence, limits our senses, disorients our perceptions, renders us lost and powerless, which, naturally, we do not like and so when we grieve it is normal to go looking for answers. But it is not possible to get over fog, or power through fog. Grief is more an overwhelming mix of emotions than a linear progression of neatly differentiated stages. Today I invite you to let go of the self-criticism that you are “not doing grief right.” You are doing your best, and best is good enough.
Today I invite you to give up the idea of getting grief out. Counter intuitive, I know. Grief is hard. Lasts a long time. How I wish I had easy steps to follow. Anxiety comes when we expect something other than what is, so we must let things be as they are.
When the body is injured, healing can take a very long time. There is not a way to accelerate healing of the wound except to keep the body healthy. When the body is injured part of the healing can include physical therapy, beginning to move and use where the body was injured, and years later you may discover there were tears and bruises and breaks that didn’t heal or won’t heal and require some attention, and there is pain. I’m not sure I believe we heal from grief. Like any simile it has limitations. I offer it to you for consideration.
Focus on Scripture
Hearing & Believing
Lessons learned from scripture
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Stress and anxiety are normal. We can either figure out effective ways to manage them, or they will manage us.
We are working on our imitation…most of the time when he speaks Jesus is brief and pointed.
The Big Top on Human Sexuality
When we start a conversation about race, we are constrained to question ourselves. We do not see ourselves as racist; in fact, we deplore racism. But what if, despite all our best intentions, we don’t realize that some of our ‘givens’, some of our core beliefs about people and the ways of the world and some of how we understand ourselves are tinged with racism that is so familiar it has eluded our awareness?
Being stuck trying to stay safe in our houses gives us a very unique perspective for reading the Easter story anew… and wouldn’t you know it, we find some things we’ve never noticed before.
Having everything change radically has been quite disorienting and left us all feeling very out of control. Not everything people do in search of control is productive or appropriate. This series recognizes some of our temptations and suggests healthy alternatives for regaining solid ground in God’s kingdom
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Galatians 6:9
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