Healing: Will you let God mend your grieving heart?

Understanding your grief, embracing your healing.

God is more than able to heal your grieving heart. When your heart is breaking, He is there to hold you.Your circumstances may not change, but your heart will heal again.

Stages of grieving.

Many of us go through the following stages of grieving, regardless of culture. These stages were first outlined by a Swiss psychiatrist by the name Kubler-Ross. She spent time examining death and those affected by it. It’s important to note that these phases are not clean successive stages. They don’t happen in a straight line. They are more like a messy spiral.

Denial, numbness, and shock: This is the stage where you first hear the shocking news. As you slowly acknowledge the impact of the loss, denial and disbelief will decrease.

Bargaining: This is the stage when you have vicious thoughts about how you could have prevented the loss. If you don’t deal with this properly, intense feelings of guilt may get in the way of your healing.

Depression: This stage happens in some people, after they fully realize the depth of the loss. Quite often depression may include loss of sleep and appetite as well as a lack of energy and concentration. You may also feel lonely, empty, isolated.

Anger: This often comes as a result of feeling helpless , powerless and abandoned. You may even be angry at God or  life .

Acceptance: This is  when you come to terms with the reality and accept that  the loss has happened.This is the point where you are no longer looking back to recover life as you knew it. You can begin to look forward to forge a new future, with lessons from the past. Acceptance is not healing, but it’s the starting point to healing.

Biblical Healing

The stages above are based on circular research and they pretty much outline observed reactions to grief. Beyond that, I believe lasting healing comes from God. When we abandon ourselves at His mercy and cry for help and comfort, He will come through for us. Grieving is a normal experience. Jesus wept when his friend Lazarus died. Remember, crying is not a sign of weakness. Allow yourself time to grieve and mourn. There is no schedule. It’s different for every single person. You take the time you need.

1. Go to God when it’s raw and intense, He can handle it. Express your anger and complaints to Him. The psalms are full of candid expressions of hurt to God. Psalm 13

2. Cast your burdens on Jesus, for He cares: 1Peter 5:7. Even when you have prayed for healing of  your loved one and they still die,  Jesus still loves you and cares about you! The devil would like you to stay offended at God about your loss and sorrow. The truth is, there is a bigger picture than what we can see. In that bigger picture, God who is love conquers all, even death!

3. Seek help from someone understanding. Talk to a Counselor, your Pastor or a friend. Romans 12 :15 tells us to mourn with those who mourn.

   The best way to mourn with a friend or  a loved one is to just sit and cry with them. They will let you know when they are ready to talk.

4. Turn over all layers of your grief to God. He will eventually, turn your deepest cries to songs of joy and gratitude. “You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy” PS 30:11
5. Bless someone else. You will find incredible strength in helping someone else. Philippians 2:4: ” Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Many ministries have  been started in memory of a loved one. It gives you an outlet to do something constructive and help others.
   

4 Things to remember as you move on

1. Your quality of  life after loss depends on how you move forward. The more you release the feelings during mourning, the more you grow.
2. Loss can afford you an opportunity to gain wisdom, compassion and unconditional love for others. It doesn’t feel that way when you are in the depth of the pain and despair. It does get better as you accept God’s healing love.
3. You know you are beginning to heal when you can have pleasant memories of your loved one, without excruciating pain.
4. Moving on doesn’t mean you forget the person. You carry them in your heart , as you forge a meaningful life of service and balance.

Here is to all our loved ones who have gone before us!

May we honor their lives with a life well lived.

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