Thoughts on Grieving

Sorry this first one is not all that cheerful. But I found this one in my "In Progress" folder and it was actually already complete! :)


Thoughts on grieving…

When we grieve, we grieve not only for the one we lost. We grieve for every single possibility that may have awaited us in our future. All the questions of “what if” and “if only”, which begin to creep into our heads the very second that person is taken from us.

“What if he hadn’t been at the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“What if he had somehow lived through it?”
“What if I had said more often how I felt?”
“What if he had made it back home safely?”
“What if we were meant for each other?”

We can’t run from the questions. Well, we can run from them, but not forever, and not with good results. Not only must we turn around and face these nagging, unanswerable questions... We must take each one in turn, walk with it down the road of the mind’s eye, accompany it to the dead-end that awaits, and watch helplessly as it dies a slow, agonizing death. Then we must trek back to the starting point, only to pick up another unanswerable question and begin the same journey once more.

To me, there is a very fine line between working through grief and torturing yourself. Honestly, the process is the same, the questions are the same. But the factors which determine which result you’ll get (healing or torment) are your attitude, your faith, and your determination not to become completely overcome by the grief.

It’s important to understand that it’s okay to have a bad day. Grieving is not supposed to be some neat, orderly process, where each day is always better than the ones before. Some days you just can’t face the grief, and that’s okay. Don’t push yourself to. Heaven knows it will still be there waiting for you when you’re ready to pick it back up again and face it. But don’t hide out too long, either. The anger and grief will fester and eat at you until the day comes when you must either release the grief or let it destroy you.

I think one thing that makes grieving so hard is being overly concerned with whether or not you’re doing it right, or fast enough, or slowly enough. I know for me, I was terrified of not going through the grieving process correctly and at an acceptable pace, for fear that I would have to retrace my steps, or end up emotionally scarred for a lifetime. So after reading up a bit on the topic of grieving, I picked up several tips. Some were from educated professionals who study the mind, and some from caring souls who have walked the road already and want to help out those who come behind them. So, here is my advice… my one all-encompassing tip on grieving.

Gather together every piece of advice on grieving and loss, whether you consider it to be good or bad. Print it out and put it all together in a notebook. Got it? Now throw that notebook as far away from you as possible. Or set the thing on fire. Feel better? Didn’t think so. Feel alone and vulnerable and petrified and directionless? Good. You have to work through your grief in your own way, and in your own time. You cannot borrow someone else’s notes and cheat on this test. Doesn’t work that way. Suppose someone tells you to go through five stages, in this specific order, and allow 3-5 weeks for each. But you really needed only 3 stages, and you needed 6 months in each. You may very well end up at least temporarily, if not irreversibly, screwed up. That grieving plan, though it may have worked for someone else, is not your own individual plan, and it will not work for you.

All notebook-burning joking aside… Here is what I would suggest, and what I will hopefully do the first time around whenever I have cause to grieve again. Pray. Ask God to make you sensitive to what you need, when you need it. Trust. You have to know that you can depend on God completely during this entire process. Give yourself freedom. When you feel like crying, cry. When you feel like looking through old letters and pictures, do it. When you feel like writing, write. When you feel like dying, fight. When you don’t think you can think about it for one more second, don’t. Think about something else. Or someone else. One of the best ways to get your mind off yourself and your problems is to reach out and do something for someone else.

Just know that God will get you through it. Lean on Him and trust Him with all your heart.


Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my
cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of
the LORD forever.

I'm back...

Well, I know it's been about 9 months since I've written anything for this blog. I was able to get some posts cranked out at the last minute before leaving for Basic Training, and get those auto-published while I was in BMT, but I haven't done anything since then. I'm back now, though, so please feel free to breathe that sigh of relief and return, finally, to getting a full night's rest.

I have an entire folder full of "in progress" blogs that are in various stages of development. So I'm going to try to finish some of those, and then return to creating new ones. Of course, they're all new to you, the reader, so I basically just wasted time and energy writing this entire paragraph.

Aren't you glad I'm back? :)