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There is nothing easy about grief! How
right Shakespeare was when he declared, “Everyone can master a
grief but he that has it.”2 In a dozen different ways, some
people reveal their impatience that we ought to be recovering more
quickly – which leaves us having to cope with yet one more layer of
grief. If we make the effort to explain to these people how we are
really feeling, it may lead to the depth of understanding we were
hoping for, but equally it may serve only to reinforce their
original opinion that we ought to be getting over it.
Unless we “cast our burdens on the
Lord” in the way that Alison Browne suggests in the poem above, we
are likely to become angry. Psychologists tell us that this is a
normal response to loss and trauma. Judging by the number of times
the psalmists direct their anger at the Lord we might certainly
conclude this to be the case. It is not a phase to get stuck in,
however, not least because it is usually those who are closest to us
who have to bear the brunt of our outbursts.
Unless these people are exceptionally
patient and understanding, (and how grateful we can be for those who
are) our unhappiness is likely to reinforce their instinct to
withdraw from us – which merely exacerbates our feelings of
isolation. In other words, although anger may be a common response
to loss, it is also something that we need to “own.”
Once again we are coming face to face
with the inescapable fact that the grief process involves
considerable work, with no automatic guarantee of success. Some
severed relationships may never be fully restored – in which case we
must offer our profound regrets to the Lord, bless and pray for the
people concerned, and trust Him to help us all rebuild our lives.
“In-between times”, when nothing
appears to be replacing the loss we have experienced have a way of
exposing our lack of trust. We think of people who have let us down,
and resentment sets in, like rain on a gloomy winter’s evening. Or
we look at those who appear to be doing far less than they could to
alleviate our plight, and anger knocks on our door. Sin is crouching
at our door, seeking to master us. Will we give in to it – or will
we successfully resist it?3
God does not lead His children up
blind alleys, but if the enemy can even begin to incline us towards
entertaining such a notion, he is well on the way to blunting our
cutting edge. Why settle for mediocrity and unbelief?
No matter how much we have lost, we
are still richly blessed. We still have precious memories to sustain
us, along with the certainty that the Lord will be with us as we set
out to make new ones.
Even so, we must be careful how we
process what is going on. Our minds are only too adept at adjusting
inconvenient truths, and filtering out anything it finds too painful
to confront.
If we insist on presenting matters
from our perspective, while others would see things in a very
different light, we may be like the Israelites looking back to their
life as slaves in Egypt through rose-coloured spectacles4 – or like
Puddleglum, who viewed everything through a negative rated lens.
Forthright souls may challenge our
lopsided impressions, but most prefer not to rock the boat, choosing
for the time being to suspend the Scripture, He who rebukes a man
will afterward find more favour than he who flatters with his tongue
(Proverbs 28:23).
Inauthentic remembering cannot but
distort reality, either by idealising the memory of some person,
place or event, or by “demonising” it: that is, remembering only the
hard times, and brushing all better memories aside.
Idealisation – whether good or bad –
makes it more difficult for us to make the most of the opportunities
that this day offers. That is why we do better to remember
truthfully, “warts and all.” |
