Hope
07-16-2009, 09:40 AM
-As a grieving person, you must allow yourself a lot of room & grace.
-Not wise to make any major life changing decisions or even tackle anything else personally taxing while really feeling intense grief.
-Simplify your life to give yourself and your family the space you need.
-Slim down the people in your life and focus only on the few close ones that are safe and allow you to feel your pain. This may mean you allow some people to drift off for a while as you focus on taking care of yourself and your family. Grief has a way of really reorganizing our priorities.
-Talk about your feelings to someone safe.
-Consistently cry out to God with your thoughts and feelings, don’t be afraid to tell Him what you really think. Grief gives us an opportunity to develop the most authentic and honest relationship w/ God that we have ever had.
-Give grace to others who really don't get it.
-You might need to tactfully tell someone that what they are saying is really not helpful to you at that moment, but try to be gentle with them as you stand up for yourself. What others say can sometimes be a big help, and other times it can actually cause you more pain. People mean well and are only trying to help, but you may need to limit who you are around for awhile etc.
-Don't make yourself try to fit into a certain box or type of grieving process. It is normal to be all over the board. Get professional or pastoral counseling with someone familiar with grief personally and professionally.
-Be intentional, when you can, about filling your mind with truth from God's Word through either direct Bible reading, devotional thoughts, or music. But remember there will be many days, maybe even months, where that is the last thing you want to do or even can do—and that is really OK. Draw from within yourself and the past walk with God—things God has taught you about Himself etc. And, if all you can do is cry out the word, "HELP" to God—He gets that and honors that & will do something with that.
-Stay connected with some safe Christian friends, but if you need to take a break from the regular church services that is okay. A lot of grieving is done in private and sometimes it can feel like you are being gawked at within the bigger groups of people—and that can be overwhelming and add to the difficulty of your circumstances at that time.
-Remember that the intense grieving will not last forever. You are in a process that is fluid and ever-changing.
-Don't shut your spouse out. Force yourself at times to open up to them about your grief. And if it is a shared grief, then asking them about their specific feelings is very important too.
-Watch out for unhealthy or destructive patterns of coping with the overwhelming feelings of grief.
-Try not to consistently give in to your feelings as a complete and total guide for yourself.
-Respect your feelings as valid, allow yourself to feel them, but fight against them taking over—over the longhaul this can be dangerous.
-Find a book where you can read about someone else's similar experience to yours—this helps normalize what you are feeling. Helps you to not to feel so crazy afterall.
-For me, the reality that this was a baby or it was a child who had not yet reached the age of accountability helped me to know for sure that they were "absent from the body yet present with the Lord"—However, this reality of Heaven truly did not offer me any consolation or make it any easier in the immediate aftermath of the loss. This reality seemed to grow and grow as I learned how to grieve as one with the hope of heaven—the hope of reunion someday—the hope of God's goodness in allowing me to fully know my child one day in Heaven. The truth that this relationship is not truly over, that the loss actually is temporary rather than permanent.
-Allowing the truth that Jesus carried our sorrows on the Cross too, and not just our sins was HUGE for me. I actually came to that one even slower—it was one of those things you don't realize had not truly clicked into place before that moment---until it DOES click into place one random day. Throughout the process I cried out to God and knew this was so much bigger than me—I even had a very poignant encounter where the reality of me not being able to handle this was made clear to me and I surrendered to God as much as I could at that point. However, just recently the truth of Him carrying our sorrows and making them His very own spoke to a deep place in me that had yet experienced release, unknown to me. It was during worship time at ALCC.
-It may take a few years after a huge and very personal loss of someone you deeply love—[like a family member etc..] for your family to actually begin to stabilize and truly normalize—and that is OK too. grieving seems to mostly happen in very tiny steps that add up over time.
-You will never "get over" the person you lost. However, you cannot always be torn in two—you have a future to live, many of us have spouses and children etc…we have to get back up and keep living one day at a time. The feelings do decrease in intensity over time. The freshness and rawness can last several months up to a year. And the active grieving even longer. It has been 2 yrs and 3 months for us after losing a baby and we are just now beginning to pick up some projects in our household that were just frozen in time. We are beginning to really stabilize now and I can see it and feel it. I think that stabilizing happens in little steps too and one day you realize the landscape has changed. There are so many layers to grieving. You just cannot navigate it by yourself though—only God can truly walk you through this process and stay with you at every pain and tear and internal revelation. And He will, and He will draw you in and comfort you like no one else can or will. This is because He loves you like no one else can or ever will.
-Over the years and even over the rest of your life, there will be points in time, special events, certain dates, certain pictures or things associated with the lost person etc..that will trigger a fresh wave or encounter of grief. This is very normal too. People need the space to express their grief through the days, months, and years as they need to express it. As long as it is not hurting them or another person it is fair game. For example, some need to visit the grave often, etc...just let people BE......let them be where they are and process how they need to process without being too critical. This is all new for the grieving person too--they have never walked this exact path before--every loss is different. As long as a person is holding on to God, albeit even by a thin cord at times, this is what is most important. There were times in my grief where I just could not pray, could really not converse with God. I would say little things here and there but I had moved in my relationship with Him and I was re-evaluating that relationship and all those big faith questions and answers that were not so hands off anymore. The previous answers to the big questions of life did not cut it for me anymore. I had to dig deeper and it was an exhausting and humbling process. However, my faith has become more real through this fire. There is glory that will come from this, redemption that God will bring. He will not waste this--if you stay surrendered to God as best you can [even as you stumble along the way] He will be molding you and shaping you and the loss will actually be redeemed to make you more like Jesus. It is like the way the mountains look just after a storm has passed or has abated for a bit--the beautiful colors in the sky and the way the fog and clouds soften everything. It is beautiful. More beautiful than it was before the storm in my opinion.
-Not wise to make any major life changing decisions or even tackle anything else personally taxing while really feeling intense grief.
-Simplify your life to give yourself and your family the space you need.
-Slim down the people in your life and focus only on the few close ones that are safe and allow you to feel your pain. This may mean you allow some people to drift off for a while as you focus on taking care of yourself and your family. Grief has a way of really reorganizing our priorities.
-Talk about your feelings to someone safe.
-Consistently cry out to God with your thoughts and feelings, don’t be afraid to tell Him what you really think. Grief gives us an opportunity to develop the most authentic and honest relationship w/ God that we have ever had.
-Give grace to others who really don't get it.
-You might need to tactfully tell someone that what they are saying is really not helpful to you at that moment, but try to be gentle with them as you stand up for yourself. What others say can sometimes be a big help, and other times it can actually cause you more pain. People mean well and are only trying to help, but you may need to limit who you are around for awhile etc.
-Don't make yourself try to fit into a certain box or type of grieving process. It is normal to be all over the board. Get professional or pastoral counseling with someone familiar with grief personally and professionally.
-Be intentional, when you can, about filling your mind with truth from God's Word through either direct Bible reading, devotional thoughts, or music. But remember there will be many days, maybe even months, where that is the last thing you want to do or even can do—and that is really OK. Draw from within yourself and the past walk with God—things God has taught you about Himself etc. And, if all you can do is cry out the word, "HELP" to God—He gets that and honors that & will do something with that.
-Stay connected with some safe Christian friends, but if you need to take a break from the regular church services that is okay. A lot of grieving is done in private and sometimes it can feel like you are being gawked at within the bigger groups of people—and that can be overwhelming and add to the difficulty of your circumstances at that time.
-Remember that the intense grieving will not last forever. You are in a process that is fluid and ever-changing.
-Don't shut your spouse out. Force yourself at times to open up to them about your grief. And if it is a shared grief, then asking them about their specific feelings is very important too.
-Watch out for unhealthy or destructive patterns of coping with the overwhelming feelings of grief.
-Try not to consistently give in to your feelings as a complete and total guide for yourself.
-Respect your feelings as valid, allow yourself to feel them, but fight against them taking over—over the longhaul this can be dangerous.
-Find a book where you can read about someone else's similar experience to yours—this helps normalize what you are feeling. Helps you to not to feel so crazy afterall.
-For me, the reality that this was a baby or it was a child who had not yet reached the age of accountability helped me to know for sure that they were "absent from the body yet present with the Lord"—However, this reality of Heaven truly did not offer me any consolation or make it any easier in the immediate aftermath of the loss. This reality seemed to grow and grow as I learned how to grieve as one with the hope of heaven—the hope of reunion someday—the hope of God's goodness in allowing me to fully know my child one day in Heaven. The truth that this relationship is not truly over, that the loss actually is temporary rather than permanent.
-Allowing the truth that Jesus carried our sorrows on the Cross too, and not just our sins was HUGE for me. I actually came to that one even slower—it was one of those things you don't realize had not truly clicked into place before that moment---until it DOES click into place one random day. Throughout the process I cried out to God and knew this was so much bigger than me—I even had a very poignant encounter where the reality of me not being able to handle this was made clear to me and I surrendered to God as much as I could at that point. However, just recently the truth of Him carrying our sorrows and making them His very own spoke to a deep place in me that had yet experienced release, unknown to me. It was during worship time at ALCC.
-It may take a few years after a huge and very personal loss of someone you deeply love—[like a family member etc..] for your family to actually begin to stabilize and truly normalize—and that is OK too. grieving seems to mostly happen in very tiny steps that add up over time.
-You will never "get over" the person you lost. However, you cannot always be torn in two—you have a future to live, many of us have spouses and children etc…we have to get back up and keep living one day at a time. The feelings do decrease in intensity over time. The freshness and rawness can last several months up to a year. And the active grieving even longer. It has been 2 yrs and 3 months for us after losing a baby and we are just now beginning to pick up some projects in our household that were just frozen in time. We are beginning to really stabilize now and I can see it and feel it. I think that stabilizing happens in little steps too and one day you realize the landscape has changed. There are so many layers to grieving. You just cannot navigate it by yourself though—only God can truly walk you through this process and stay with you at every pain and tear and internal revelation. And He will, and He will draw you in and comfort you like no one else can or will. This is because He loves you like no one else can or ever will.
-Over the years and even over the rest of your life, there will be points in time, special events, certain dates, certain pictures or things associated with the lost person etc..that will trigger a fresh wave or encounter of grief. This is very normal too. People need the space to express their grief through the days, months, and years as they need to express it. As long as it is not hurting them or another person it is fair game. For example, some need to visit the grave often, etc...just let people BE......let them be where they are and process how they need to process without being too critical. This is all new for the grieving person too--they have never walked this exact path before--every loss is different. As long as a person is holding on to God, albeit even by a thin cord at times, this is what is most important. There were times in my grief where I just could not pray, could really not converse with God. I would say little things here and there but I had moved in my relationship with Him and I was re-evaluating that relationship and all those big faith questions and answers that were not so hands off anymore. The previous answers to the big questions of life did not cut it for me anymore. I had to dig deeper and it was an exhausting and humbling process. However, my faith has become more real through this fire. There is glory that will come from this, redemption that God will bring. He will not waste this--if you stay surrendered to God as best you can [even as you stumble along the way] He will be molding you and shaping you and the loss will actually be redeemed to make you more like Jesus. It is like the way the mountains look just after a storm has passed or has abated for a bit--the beautiful colors in the sky and the way the fog and clouds soften everything. It is beautiful. More beautiful than it was before the storm in my opinion.