Grieving Alone

**Sit quietly, eyes closed in and silence for one minute before reading.**

    In sadness I want to be alone. In sadness I want to wrestle with God alone and I want to cry alone. I distance myself from those that love me. I am afraid they won’t be able to handle my grief or they will judge me for it so I grieve alone.

    We are so desperate to hide. We are so scared.

    It is terrifying to even begin to grieve because it is such a wild animal. When you grieve with others you admit sadness, hopelessness, and a host of other things you’d rather not talk about.

    Yet, as I look at healthy grieving in real life with support groups and in the Bible with people like Martha and Mary I realize that to grieve in community is the way to go.

    God calls us to grieve together. He calls us to enter another’s grief, meet them where they are. He calls us to allow others to minister to us in our grief.

    May God give you the gift of people, who share in your grief, who allow you to grieve freely. Do not remain hidden, do not fear. Grieve well…with others.

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Grace to Grieve

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

    “A dream of mine had just checked into hospice, and Randy was sensitive enough to know I needed some margin to think.”
                                                                    – Bob Goff, Love Does

    We all grieve and need to grieve. Some of us have lost a dream; some of us have lost a relationship, an identity or a position. We all have had losses, are grieving a loss and will have losses to come. All of these things are a part of life along with the good things too.

    When we experience loss we also experience grief and for some reason we have expectations tied to our grief. We expect it to look a certain way, last a particular period of time. We put pressure on ourselves when we are there “again” and thought we had already gotten over it.

    Why can we not give ourselves the grace to grieve?

    I love the line above from a book I have only looked at in a bookstore. As Goff describes the death of a dream, he talks about his friend who gave him the space and grace to grieve.

   Is a dream of yours dying? How will you give yourself grace? How can you give another grace as they watch a dream die?

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Jesus Wept

    “Jesus wept”. The shortest verse in the Bible contains great power. It contains power that meets us in our grief, in our sorrow and with the pain of death. In this verse God meets us in our humanity and reminds us that we have a God that identifies with us. He is not unfamiliar with grief.
    Jesus was planning to resurrect Lazarus from the dead yet he stopped to grieve with Mary and with the people. Resurrection was on his mind yet he allowed time for grief and met people in their grief. He legitimized the reality and need for tears.
    I cannot imagine the horror, the sorrow, the pain, the grief, the “I cannot breathe” feeling that the families and community of Newtown, CT. I know that God can redeem the greatest of sorrows, the greatest of evils and can re-create anything. I would like to caution against moving too quickly to redemption and not allowing grief to have its place and its time. Let us grieve with one another and for one another. Let us grieve with God knowing that Jesus weeps as well.

    I realize the story about Lazarus doesn’t end there. The story ends with some of the people saying, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” The answer is yes, Jesus could have, yet he did not. If we consider the question they are asking, they are really asking the questions of why he did not stop Lazarus from dying. I don’t know. I don’t know what he didn’t keep those at Sandy Hook from dying. I don’t know.

  For the bible story mentioned above see John 11:17-37.

Joy and Grief

**Before you begin reading, sit down, breathe normally and be quiet for 1 minute.**

    Life is full of bittersweet moments. Saying hello to one thing often requires saying goodbye to another. A new job means that we get to serve in ways more in line with our gifts and calling yet this means we say goodbye to a work team. We say hello to a new in-law and goodbye to holidays as they have been when it was just “us”.
    As we live more life we find that joy and grief often come as a pair. There is great joy as a friend receives a promotion and great grief as we are reminded that another friend is without a job. There is great joy as children receive life-saving medication and great grief as the similar children die because there is no life-saving medication.
    We are called to rejoice with those who rejoice and grieve with those who grieve. There are times when we rejoice because a friend has a dream come true. We truly are excited for them, but it is challenging to rejoice because we have to wait for our dream to come true, or maybe it never does. We grieve when another is grieving the loss of a loved one and feel a sense of guilt because our loved one remains here with us.
    Joy and grief are realities that are often tensions. Are you experiencing a life tension of joy and grief? If so, talk to God about it. Sit and listen to what He would speak to your heart and be encouraged.

**Sit quietly again for as much time as is available to you.**

Pull Yourself Together

**Before you begin reading, sit down, breathe normally and be quiet for 1 minute.**

    Who can you pour your heart out to? When is the last time you poured your heart out? Do you stop yourself, telling yourself to pull yourself together? There is probably a fine line between a healthy grief and unhealthy grief. What I have found is that many of us do not even let ourselves grieve and part of grieving is being able to pour our hearts out. We think that for some reason our emotions must be restrained and controlled. We need to pull ourselves together.
    Reading a few lament Psalms encourages me because God wants to hear our hearts. He wants us to pour our hearts out to Him. Can you pour your heart out to God? Do you allow others to pour their hearts out to you? Slow down and pour out. Let God pull you together in His time. You might be messy for a while.

**Sit quietly again for as much time as is available to you.**

Have more than two minutes? Read Psalm 62 and consider verse 8 in particular.