Comfort in Grief

Since my son left for Australia with his family I have come to know several people who have been left behind by their children. All of us are grieving. Some of them are quite brave, others are very stoical. It is interesting to note the difference in those that are Christian, and those who do not know God. We are all heart broken, but the Christian has joy in his suffering. It’s a joy that comes from the comfort and hope that God gives to those that love him.

The Bible says: “We can rejoice in suffering“(Rom5:2-5) Not because we are gluttons for punishment, but because the suffering causes our characters to mature and make changes in our lives that can enrich us.
Grief is a confusing and disorienting process that takes time. It is good to learn to trust God to guide us through the way.

It is good to remember that there are some things that we can never lose:

God’s understanding. God understands our hurt. He knows the loss of relationship caused by sin. He was separated from his son, Jesus while he hung on the cross.
God’s love. Rom 5:8 “God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”
God’s presence. Heb 13:5 “I will never leave you or forsake you”
Ask the lord to help you accept the reality of your loss and to rejoice in what you cannot lose.

Out of the Slough!

You guessed it. I have been wallowing in the Slough of Despond. It lasted some days. I couldn’t move. I wasn’t interested in doing anything, but at the same time there was this sense of panic because nothing was being done. I couldn’t help myself.
But a few days ago I woke up and it was gone. I was free, thank God.
I have started the Great Annual Spring clean and Makeover. But first, I had to catch up in the office. The bookkeeping and banking is up to date. The in-tray is empty. And now I’m doing the cupboards and drawers and filing cabinets. There are boxes everywhere –things collected over the past year, books, clothing, toys, cd’s and DVD’s , stationery etc. Amazing how much one can collect in a short year. All of these boxes will go to a needy charity like TAFTA, the SPCA and I Care.
I couldn’t help thinking how good God is to us. I have so much. All we need is shelter, food and clothing, but he has blessed us with untold riches. Besides these boxes, we do support several charities, but it seems so little in comparison to what God has done for us.
Jesus told us while he was on earth that we would always have the poor with us, I wonder why?
Perhaps one of the reasons is so that we can have the opportunity to show love and kindness to others.

34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 25

Sorting everything out did bring on all kinds of mixed emotions. My grandchildren’s drawings and little letters they had written to me brought on much tears. Finding their favourite toys and books was sad too. But then, there were happy memories as well. I confess that I could not bring myself to give away some of their things. I told myself I would keep them in the unlikely event a little child should come and visit. I thanked God for the special years that I had with them. How blessed was I!

The Slough of Despond

I think I must be in the ‘depression, listless’ stage of grieving.
I work for a small business where I run the general administration of the office and do the books. The in-tray is collapsing under the weight. Petty cash and accounts records are behind. The office is being run on the ‘management by crisis’ system.
Every year in January I do the Great Spring Clean and Makeover of the house and garden. It is March, and they are both sadly neglected.
I won’t bore you about my art, or the two books I’ve been working on. Things are just not happening here.
In the classic story of Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan the pilgrim and his friend land in the Slough of Despond. They are quite stuck in it for sometime.

In the dictionary a slough is a muddy swamp or ‘a situation characterised by lack of progress or activity‘.

Despondency is described as ‘become dejected and lose confidence’. That’s where I’ve been these last few weeks, in the Slough of Despond.

Each morning I get up with great enthusiasm to begin the tasks and tackle the backlog and then I think of the children far away and the next thing I know its five o’ clock in the evening and I realise nothing has actually been done. I’ve read a little, chatted to someone on the phone, skyped my son, and drunk copious quantities of tea. And so the days pass.
In the story, John Bunyan is telling us that the pilgrim, Christian, fell into the slough because he had taken his eyes off his goal, which was the wicker gate where he was heading.
I don’t think I’ve taken my eyes off my goal, which is to be with Christ in heaven one day. But I have some earthly goals that I need to re-instate - I just feel that it is all too much without all my dear children near me.
On consideration, I have a grand life. I love my job, which isn’t too taxing. I love my house and garden. I love my church and the people in it, and my art, and I’m excited about the books I’m working on. I need to get enthusiastic again. But how?

Grief and Loss

For a little while, I’m going to blog all the bits and pieces I have collected during my research on grief and loss. These have been really helpful to us. Understanding the process of grief and recognising the different emotions and stages in ourselves has been encouraging. I hope they will help others who read them.

Everyone suffers with some form of loss. No one is exempt. Everyone is dealing in loss in some form or another. Sooner or later, the things or people we love are taken from us. It hurts to say good-bye. The painful process of dealing with any loss is called grief. Grief is a normal and unavoidable part of life.

Loss brings us face to face with ourselves, with our enemy, and with our God. We like to think that we are really in control of our lives, but a loss exposes our vulnerability. The way we deal with loss can make us better or bitter.

We grieve because we were never designed to handle loss. When God first made Adam and Eve in his image, he made them with an innate capacity for enjoying a relationship with God and with other human beings. They never knew loss in any form. The bitter consequence of Adam’s sin was death - separation and loss of the cherished relationship with his Creator, and then the deterioration of relationships with others which followed.

Painful loss reminds us that this earth should never be the focus of our hopes. We are sojourners in a foreign land and we are not yet home. Grief over any loss can have a healthy effect if it brings us to God among the multitude of people who came to Jesus out of a need for comfort, rescue and blessing.

“Looking for that blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Christ Jesus.” Titus 2:13

Apologies

Oh Dear me. My son in Australia has read my blog and takes great exception to the fact that I said he did not approve of us as grandparents. He says that simply is not true. He thinks we were wonderful grandparents. I do apologise to him. I should have said they did not approve of some of the things we did, like spoiling the little ones, and allowing them to watch too much TV, and giving them too many sweets and treats to eat. And we are guilty of those things. And if they were here, we would do the same things again, we remain unrepentant, I’m afraid.

One month down the line....

I used to enjoy swimming in the sea. I loved to go further out from the beach and catch the bigger waves as they came in. Sometimes I would float over them, sometimes I would dive through them to the other side, and sometimes I would turn around and swim with them until they carried me speedily to shore. Once or twice my timing would be out and the wave would catch me, I was tossed and turned like a sock in the tumble drier until I was dumped unceremoniously on the shore, shaken and bruised with my hair and ears and swimming costume filled with sand.
That’s how I feel now. Only the wave isn’t water, its grief, and I just have to wait and allow myself to be washed onto the shore.
It has been a almost a month now since my son immigrated to Australia with his wife and children. I have been reading a lot about grief. I’ve learned some really helpful things. One of the most encouraging is that the process of grief can take months. It’s a relief because I was starting to wonder why I wasn’t getting over it, what was taking me so long. I also learned that one doesn’t get over grief, one gets through it. That made me think of the sea.
I also learned that we especially grieve the loss of cherished relationships. The more we have invested in the relationship, the greater will be the distress and pain of the separation. The depth of our grief is directly linked to the quality of the relationship with the individual or desired object we have lost. We were devoted to our son and his family, so of course, our suffering is great.
When he was on earth, Jesus knew grief. He wept when his friend Lazarus died. God grieves over his children who refuse to acknowledge him or what he has done for them.
When I first learned that my son was leaving, my first thought was, “I won’t be able to bear it, I will die” But that isn’t true at all. I have borne it. I haven’t died. God’s grace has been sufficient for me. In the month past, there have been times I have smiled, rejoiced, laughed, even. God is here, helping me, supporting me, comforting me, and best of all, teaching me.

Going Home

I had not been to church for three weeks because I was ill. It was wonderful to go yesterday. Like coming home from a long, far away journey. It was so good to see all my friends there. Yes, many of them had come to see me while I was sick, but it was so much nicer to be with them all there. And to sing and pray with them. To read God’s word and hear it explained with them and to talk about it afterwards was such a pleasure. And then to crown it all, we shared communion together. That is when we remember what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, taking our sin upon Himself, not only so that we could have a right relationship with Him, but also with each other.
First, we read from Joshua 3 and 4: 1-24 where we are told about the time God parted the flooding river so that his people, thousands, upon thousands of them could walk across. He did it so we could know how powerful he is. It was a great miracle. A marvellous thing that God did. He had promised that he would take his people to a land he had for them, and nothing would keep him from his promise.
God wants us to remember the great things he did. He wants us to teach our children about it, because when we know what a great God we have, and what lengths he will go to in order to keep his promises to us, we will have the confidence to trust him in all situations and circumstances.
God has done many great things, but the greatest of all was when he came down to earth in the form of a man and died on the cross and then rose again to live forever. And he did this for just the same reason as before – to keep his promise to take his people to a land he has for them, and nothing will keep him from his promise.

Joshua 4:21 “He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”