If you have been alive on this planet for any amount of time, chances are you have experienced grief. Grief and loss are expected parts of life, but that doesn’t make them easy to navigate. The death of a loved one, a divorce or breakup, losing a job, or even living through a worldwide traumatic event like covid can be a deeply painful experience and requires time and effort to heal.
Everyone processes grief and sorrow differently, but learning how to approach these emotions can make the burden easier to hold.
Why do we experience grief?
We live in a broken world, but we weren’t meant to. God intended us to live in peace and joy, without suffering. But because we live in a broken world, suffering exists. Where God intended us to live in community, there is loss. Where God designed us to have life, there is illness and death. Where God wanted us to have peace and stability there is chaos.
When we experience grief, it is our hearts crying out because things are not as they should be.
Revelations 21:4 says that God will one day “wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” but until then, we still have to learn how to deal with grief.
Navigating Grief
Grief often comes with a wide array of conflicting and painful emotions. You may be feeling anger, sorrow, frustration, fear, guilt, or even a kind of numbness. These emotions can come in waves and feel totally overwhelming at times. Even though these feelings feel unending and unmanageable, we can learn about ourselves and our emotions to help us navigate our grief.
5 Stages
- Denial : After a tragedy or loss, it is easy to first feel in denial. You might have found yourself saying “this can’t be real” or “this is just a bad dream”. Denial is a normal first feeling after a major traumatic event and it helps our brain process the grief more slowly.
- Anger: When the reality of your loss sets in, it is common to feel upset and angry at your circumstance, yourself, and at God. Thoughts of “I can’t believe they would do this!” or “how could God let this happen” can overwhelm you. Oftentimes it can be easier to feel anger than sadness or pain, so we feel anger instead at the injustice of the situation.
- Bargaining: Sometimes we start to question why a tragedy happened and say things like “if only” or “what if”. These statements make us feel like we could have done something differently or controlled our situations, even when we couldn’t. You may even find yourself bargaining with God to try and change the situation.
- Depression: Depression is often the lowest point we hit when we experience grief. The feelings of being hopeless, trapped, and confused can feel like a rock on your chest. Depression is when we face our deepest pain and grief, but it isn’t the end of the journey.
- Acceptance: Grief may feel unending, and pain often never fully goes away, but when we learn to accept what happened to us, we can move on and process all our messy emotions. Our acceptance doesn’t erase what happened, but it means that our painful emotions and unfair circumstances don’t need to control us anymore.
Healing
Learning how to heal and navigate your grief after a death, breakup, divorce, or loss can make the pain less suffocating. If you are experiencing grief and sorrow right now, there are things you can do to help cope.
When we are in the midst of pain, it may feel like your emotions are drowning you. We try to push down our emotions to avoid feeling negative things. But it is important to feel your emotions in the midst of grief. Feeling your emotions is the first step to processing them.
It is also important to remember that we don’t deal with grief alone.
When you feel overwhelmed by the pain of grief, reach out to your community, family, and friends. A church or Bible study can help you not feel alone when you are experiencing sorrow.
Navigating and healing from grief mostly takes time. No pain is erased overnight, so give yourself time and space to heal.
If you feel trapped by grief and pain for long periods of time and feel like you could benefit from additional support, a counselor, pastor, or support group can help you process your emotions and find additional coping methods.