Recovering from Grief

Recognizing grief is the first step to recovery. We all think of grief as what we feel when we lose a loved one. This is probably the deepest of all grief. We may also be familiar with the steps we go through anticipating the loss during an illness or after the passing itself. The most common steps are denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance. Knowing the process does not necessarily make it easier. When I lost my mother at 24 (not yet knowing that I was pregnant), my resolve was that if I was going to experience something so painful—I would grow in wisdom and faith as a result. Losing other people who I felt very close to over the years and then my dad a few months ago taught me different lessons because I was at different places in my life and faith journey.

We don’t often credit the emotions we have over other loses in our lives as grief. ANY LOSS can cause feelings of grief. Loss of a relationship and trust of a friend or spouse (especially in the case of divorce) certainly causes grief. Loss of a dream you had about your future can cause feelings of grief. Many are currently experiencing losses of retirement funds which were meant to allow some security and ability to travel and enjoy life later. Parents may have envisioned family closeness continuing as the kids grew up and had their own children only to have to adjust to much less togetherness than they had dreamed about. Others have had health problems rob them of the simple dream of continuing life as they know it. Those who have children with any kind of challenge must often adjust their dreams for their children. It is important to acknowledge these as losses that are worthy of grief and to give ourselves permission and time to grieve.

Everyone needs time and we must respect and allow each person to cope with any grief in their own time and way. Especially when two people are grieving together, they have to respect the other person’s difference in coping in order to continue to support one another. There are some things that may help. At some point, we must force ourselves to move forward, accepting that we cannot have things the way we want them. We then must open our hearts and minds to the idea that God has a marvelous plan for the rest of our lives. Also, focusing on simple daily blessings can help us refocus our lens to seeing blessings more clearly while problems blur a little. This can change our first perception of situations and help us get our joy back. There is a famous poem about a family trip being mistakenly rerouted to Holland rather than Italy. The family was so focused on what they were missing in Italy that they didn’t see the beauty that was in Holland. Finally, it is also important to be flexible and recognize that God may be clearly leading you in a specific direction, but it may not be where you think you are going. Many a detour may be part of His plan to give us some experiences and lessons we need before we go where He is ultimately leading.