Lingering grief

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds James 1:2

In America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, we do not do a very good job in the grief department.  We look for open doors and unused compartments to shove our grief in where we hope to never encounter it again.  We want to lock the door on grief, turn the key on grief and then toss the key away where we hope never to find it again.

 Grief is a painful subject for many people.  We would rather drown out sorrows over it. Indulge in eating too much comfort food over it. Throw ourselves into working too much over it. Throw away our marriages over it. We will do anything but do the one thing that we know we should do which is to 'talk about it'.  We don't talk about it because we do not see anyone else who struggles with these emotions. 

 As American's we watch people going through life with a stiff upper lip who when ask will say 'everything is fine, my family is great, my job is great, but the last thing they will tell you is their inner most pain they buried away in a closed up vault somewhere. You see the collateral damage from grief like unresolved drinking problems, DUI convictions, gambling addictions that deplete their savings account. We think resolving those problems will lead to total healing.  Until we recognize that unresolved grief lead to the drinking problem,the gambling problem, the over eating we will never get to the root of the problem. 

 The problem with this approach is unresolved grief has a tendency to resurface at the least unexpected times. Unresolved grief comes out in ways you do not desire for it to surface. Grief can bring out health problems that can be very serious.  I read a study one time that said that people who suffer losses have a higher risk for cancer down the road from their grief.  I believe unresolved grief can trigger these things in our bodies unless we learn to express our grief in a healthy manner.  Find a friend who will be a trusted listener who is not afraid to listen to the profound pain you feel deep inside. 

We must also realize  that there is no correlation between the size of one's faith and escaping pain and suffering.  In fact, the opposite is true.  If you are living a Christian life you can expect that at some point suffering will be part of that picture. In James 1:2 I read 'count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds. Suffering is part of God's bigger picture to redeem the people He has always loved and who he does not want to see perished.  Your suffering, even for only a brief moment, may bring others to Christ. So how do we allow others to know about our journey unless we talk about it?  How do we let them know that it is  normal when those wretched emotions of our grief enter into us unless we talk about it?  So the next time you receive the dreaded phone call at 3:00 am lean into your pain and find a trusted friend willing to walk the journey with you. Your grief journey just may be a role model for others to embrace!