There is a thought that we have to go through stages in grief. Someone well-meaning laid it out for us in a simple plan:
Denial, Anger, Depression, Bargaining and Acceptance.
While we are now realizing that this process doesn’t necessarily happen in stages (it can happens all at once and sometimes in no particular order), we have to wrestle about what happens when it does come.
When grief occurs two different thoughts can happen.
The first is despair. The second is toxic positivity. Both are deadly. As a Christian, we can easily fall into both camps. Let me explain.
When grief happens, we are feeling the sting of loss. And it’s a painful sting. Regardless of how complicated the loss is, it’s still a loss and something to wrestle with. It can be so easy to only see the dark. Well-meaning people come alongside and say that things will get better.
“It won’t last like this forever. You will move on.”
Those things might happen and might be true, but it’s not addressing the issue you’re dealing with right now at this moment: The tension of sorrow. The weight of the hole that you feel in your soul. The heaviness that feels like it’s crushing you at every turn. That weight is hard to bear.
So we become depressed and our joy is sucked from us. This is normal. It’s even expected. But when we live as if we have no hope, that is living a lie. Being a Christian is an oxymoron. Thanks the Jesus, death doesn’t have the final say. The sting we feel from death isn’t the end. Even in despair, David knew he would have lost heart completely if he hadn’t looked up. Yet, here we are, overwhelmed and overcome with grief and heartache.
So if that’s you right now, wrestling with despair, feeling the weight of grief, look up. This sorrow that won’t leave will not last forever. God is not cruel even if it feels like He is. Even if what’s happening right now is shredding your soul. God is good. He hears you. He has not ignored your tears. He carries them. He hold every single painful moment you’ve felt. He’s known the depth of your sorrow. And He has hope waiting for you.
So you know this. You know there is hope. You're not in despair. What about you?
You, I understand so well because you are me. The acceptance portion of grief might come faster to you. You can accept what has happened and understand that God sees all that is happening. But you cannot avoid the process.
“God works all things for good.”
This verse is used so many times as a means to encourage others. You have probably said it to others and even yourself. That’s good, but it doesn’t mean the weight of grief is any less. Toxic positivity is something that I’ve seen in the church for a long time. Christians aren’t comfortable with heavy emotions such as grief, anger, or sorrow. We think that to experience those things are ungodly. You feel like you lack faith when you feel anger and sorrow. But that’s not true at all. Yes, God is good and you can choose to praise Him. But also God is good and you’re allowed to be mad and cry.
Feeling heavy emotions doesn’t mean that you lack faith. It doesn't mean your joy is stolen from you. It doesn’t mean you’re less Godly because you don’t have a “joyful countenance”.
Feeling heavy emotions means that you’re human.
Jesus understands your humanity having been fully God and fully human. He understands living in the tension of the now and not yet.
That is where the Christian is at- living in the tension. The oxymoron.
God sees and is not upset over that. Perhaps we think living in the tension is riding the fence. It’s not. Living in the tension is knowing that there is hope and that Jesus will restore while experiencing despair and the weight of sin.
The sin of living in a fallen world.
I can’t wait till all things are made whole again. I can’t wait till Jesus literally restores my broken heart. But while I wait, I can sit in the grief and cry aloud. I can say that Jesus is my savior and wait for that salvation to be made full. It’s where I anchor my faith- the tension of here and now.
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