Portraits

• Mark didn’t know what was the matter—it had been almost two years since his wife Sue had died and he felt as if nothing had changed. He still couldn’t believe that she was really gone. After Sue’s accident, Mark’s friends were supportive and his church had brought meals and had prayed for him but nothing had seemed to help. There were days, more of them than he cared to admit, when he thought it would have been better if he had been in the car with Sue and had died too.
  
  
• Tina couldn’t seem to stop crying. She was angry with herself and her husband Bill for forcing them to move a thousand miles from family and friends. She missed everyone, her church, the friends she had grown up with, and most of all her family. She didn’t want to be here and certainly didn’t want to make friends. The phone bill was huge but she didn’t care. She just wanted to go back home.
  
  
• Rob couldn’t drive past the hospital without feeling that sick clenching feeling in his gut. He had spent hours watching his dad struggle with cancer. Rob just couldn’t seem to care about anything—his days, and sometimes nights for that matter, had revolved around doing whatever he could to make sure his dad made it, and now his dad was gone.

Definitions and Key Thoughts

• Grief is intense emotional suffering caused by a loss.
  
• Grieving is like entering the valley of shadows. Grief is not fun. It is painful. It is work. It is a lingering process. It is a healing journey that can last anywhere from one to three years, and for some a lifetime. Some never get through the process of grieving.
  
• A sudden death can be more difficult to grieve because there is no warning and no chance to say goodbye and begin to prepare for the loss.
  
• Grief is not always just about death. It can also be faced in a divorce, life transitions, disaster, or misfortune.
  
• Grief is actually a complex set of emotions, all of which are “normal.” Someone who is grieving may experience his loss psychologically through feelings, thoughts, and attitudes; socially as he interacts with others; physically as it affects his health.
• Often friends don’t know how to help someone who is grieving and may try to “cheer him up” or “get his mind off his loss.” This can actually add to the burden as the person who is grieving has to either avoid his friends or “fake it” rather than have the chance to share what he is really feeling.
  
• Sometimes loss is cumulative and awakens memories of early losses that were never fully grieved.
  
• Someone who is grieving may experience intense feelings of guilt for aspects of the relationship with the person who has died or he may feel as if he is being punished.
  
• Sometimes the feelings of anger and sadness are projected onto God and the grieving person experiences God as distant and uncaring.
  
• Often sadness and loss can intensify during certain times of the year such as the month that the person died, family holidays, and the person’s birthday or anniversary.
  

 Stages of Grief

• Grief can be felt in many different ways. Grief has several stages that were originally
  identified by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross:
  
  1. Denial or shock. Intellectually, the bereaved may comprehend what has happened, but his emotions may not experience the pain yet; he may feel numb.
  
  2. Release of emotions, often in the form of anger toward others. The bereaved may even get angry with God. Grieving people become preoccupied with memories of what has been lost and may withdraw for a time.
  
  3. Guilt and anger. The bereaved beats himself up emotionally as he blames himself for not somehow preventing the loss. He feels disorganized and doesn’t know how to move on with life. Depression may set in.
  
  4. Acceptance of the loss. Reorganizing his life, filling new roles, and reconnecting with those around him are all healthy and important facets of the healing process. A key part of this process is the ability to learn how to feel and express the pain more truly without denial and avoidance.1
  
  
• As helpful as these stages are, they are not neatly-packaged states that a person experiences sequentially; rather, they are a cycle and the bereaved may experience more than one emotion at a time.
  
  
• The goal of grieving is not to get things back to normal. After a loss, one’s entire life may change. The goal is to find and accept a new “normal.”
  

Assessment of Grief and Loss

Rule Outs

Q1 Determine if your grieving process has cycled downward into a debilitating depression. Ask yourself: “On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being great and 10 being extremely depressed, where would I put myself today?” (see also the section on Depression.)

Q2 Do you have any thoughts of hurting yourself? (If suicidal thoughts are present, see the section on Suicide and get other help immediately.)

General Questions

Note: These are directed toward someone who is grieving over a death, but could
be recast for the person who is grieving loss for other reasons.

Q3 Think about the person who has died.

Q4 Share your favorite memories of this person.

Q5 Was the death especially traumatic? (For example, was it a sudden accident or death at home?)

Q6 Where were you when the death occurred? (Listen for ways that you may be blaming yourself or feeling guilty for what has happened. For example, were you driving the car that had the accident? Were you the passenger who survived a car accident while the other person did not?)

Q7 How did you feel after the death?

Q8 What emotions have you had since the death?

Q9 What emotions do you currently feel most often?

Q10 Does this loss remind you of any other loss that you have experienced?

Q11 Who else knows what you have been going through? Who is supporting you emotionally and spiritually?

Q12 What does the loss mean for you personally?

Q13 At what level are you functioning right now? Tell me about a typical day.

Q14 When are your best times?

Q15 When are your worst times?

Wise Counsel

Assess how you are functioning in daily life and what help you might need.

Remember that the process will take time, and the range and intensity of emotions you are experiencing are normal.

Remember that each person’s grieving experience is unique.

 1. Be Patient

• Give yourself whatever time that it takes to heal emotionally.
  
• Try to keep a routine, get lots of rest, and not try to attempt too much but to direct your energies toward healing.

2. Maintain Friendships

• Let others comfort and share in the journey toward healing.
  
• Take care not to become isolated, but rather to seek meaningful connection with others.
  
• Make a list of friends to call.
  
• Locate a grief support group.

3. Feel the Pain

• Help the person understand that the intensity of the pain is normal and that eventually it will begin to subside. The pain will probably never disappear completely, but it will become bearable.
  
• Trying to avoid the “terrible pain” only prolongs the grief.
  
• Trying to avoid a loss by hiding the feelings will only cause problems in other areas—emotionally, spiritually, or physically.
  
• Dealing with loss in a healthy manner can be a major avenue to growth and life-transforming change.
  
• The person must move forward by experiencing the grief while at the same time rejoining the living through acts of giving and receiving.

4. “Normalize” the Feelings of Grief

• Grief encompasses a number of changes. It appears differently at various times, and it comes and goes in people’s lives.
• It is a normal, predictable, expected, and healthy reaction to a loss.
• Grief is each individual’s personal journey. Your manner of dealing with any kind of loss—no matter how minor or severe it may appear to others— must be respected. It should be gently challenged only when prolonged in a manner that is detrimental to you and your relationships.

5. Healing

• Find someone else with whom you can process any guilt and anger you are feeling.
• Redirect your energies from excessive “if onlys” and wishing that things could be different to instead focusing on healing.

Biblical Insights

Then David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son. —2 Samuel 1:17

• Expressing sorrow is a healthy response to grief. David poured out his sorrow in words that honored the anointed king and his son.
  
• Putting grief into words is a healthy way to handle the pain and honor those who have died.

He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. —Isaiah 53:3-4

• Isaiah’s words communicate the suffering of the One who loved us and died for us.
  
• In our deepest moments of grief and loss, we need only look to Him on the Cross and realize that He understands. He alone can heal the wounded heart.
  

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” —John 11:25-26

• Because of sin, death comes to all (Romans 5:12-14). Many try to ignore death, not wanting to think or talk about it. But feared or embraced, expected or not, death still occurs. 
• Jesus experienced those emotions at the death of His good friend Lazarus. Jesus knows the pain of loss and uncontrollable sorrow. He knows the incredible power of death.
  
• It is natural to feel sad and mourn the death of a loved one. But in our times of sorrow, we can let Jesus hold us in His compassionate arms, knowing that He understands.
  

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. —1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

• The Thessalonian believers wondered what was happening to their fellow believers who had died.
  
• Believers have the ultimate assurance. We believe that Jesus died, rose again, ascended, and is coming again; and we also believe that He will bring with Him those who have died.
  
• One day, all believers will be reunited in the grandest reunion ever seen!

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. —Revelation 21:4

• evelation describes a better time and a better place where grief and loss will not exist: heaven.
• No matter what we experience here, God promises a perfect future with Him. Through the hard times of today, we can trust this hope for the future.

Recommended Resources

American Association of Christian Counselors Life Enrich Video Series

A Grief Observed, by C.S. Lewis

Living with Grief and Loss, by Freda Crews

Loss in Marriage/Hope of Heaven, by Norman Wright