I’ve spent much of the past 4 years talking about different areas of grief. Initially, I wanted to help the support system of those grieving a loss know how to best help their friends.
More recently I’ve also begun to speak into the lives of those suffering losses, helping them walk through that in the healthiest way possible. All of this fueled by the wisdom God imparts either through my own trials, or supernaturally when I need him to fill in some blanks for me!
Part of that message is to help grievers understand the importance of acknowledging their grief, rather than tamping it down, hoping it will go away. News flash – it doesn’t! It must eventually be faced and worked through.
But in the past couple of days, God has given me a new insight into why it makes complete sense for us to face our grief head-on, and not pretend that it’s really not that bad. This idea now seems so obvious to me that I want to slap my forehead and yell, “Duh!”
To best illustrate this idea, I must take us back to the Garden of Eden and the moment when Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. Up to this point, we know she and Adam walked in perfect harmony with God in a perfect paradise. None of us has ever experienced perfection such as Adam and Eve did – until that fateful moment when she succumbed to Satan’s temptation and disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit and offering it to Adam.
That was the moment when every good thing in that perfect paradise became tainted. And not just a bit of rust here and there. Oh no, what entered the world at that point was sin and all of its ramifications. Disease, decay, heartache, selfishness, impure motives and actions, losses of every kind imaginable, and ultimately…death.
Every single thing that we humans can possibly grieve entered the world because of that first sin. Our world is forever fallen, in this life.
So what kind of reaction should we have to all of this heartache? All these new realities that are the exact opposite of what God initially intended for us? Does it make sense for us to say, “Oh, it’s not really that bad.”
No! That reaction makes no sense in the context of why all of this ugliness has now befallen us. It’s the opposite of all the perfection God originally created. The only reaction is to grieve it deeply. This is a fallen world and the hard things in our lives should not be trivialized. Call a spade a spade!
Of course you’re hurting! Of course this is devastating to you! Of course, you struggle to know how to make it to the next day! That’s the full reality of what our trials represent.
So, let me repeat myself. It makes NO sense to address one of your deepest hurts by saying, “It’s not so bad.”
This new perspective tells me that to trivialize our losses and heartaches is to minimize the massive destructive force of sin in this world. And indirectly, to minimize the goodness and perfection of God’s original plan.
Now, before you all accuse me of being a Debbie Downer (sorry to my Debbie friends…), let me acknowledge that living in the dark reality of this grief 100% of the time is also not what God wants for us.
Just last week, I addressed all the amazing things that God accomplishes through our trials. Check it out here, if you missed it. That is also an essential element of our grief process. Knowing that God walks through your trials with you – and he will bring something good from it. This is God’s, “Take that!” to Satan who wants to crush us through our trials. His desire is for our destruction. Praise God that he ordains those trials for his holy purposes.
But today’s post is to assure that the full reality of what our heartaches represent doesn’t get lost behind our desires to see God’s hand through them. BOTH are true. Don’t miss the full effects of each.
The devastation of your loss is real.
God’s presence in your life through that loss is real.
Seek the balance that comes from understanding both realities. I believe it’s the only honest and healthy way to address grief in this fallen world, while relying fully on the healing and hope we have in Jesus.
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
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