Two weeks ago, we talked about a lot of the details of grief – what happens, who experiences it, what we can do. For that sermon/lecture go here.

Again, I want to emphasize why it’s important for us to talk about so difficult a thing right now. Our church has experienced loss and grief these past few weeks – we’ve lost several church members and family members. Grief is something that can be addressed by faith, and among people of faith. Grief is also something that can destroy our relationships with God and with others.

In other words, dealing with grief properly is as important a matter of health as watching and dealing with your cholesterol!

Adjusting to Loss or Change

I heard the story a few months ago of a family whose college-age daughter was raped and killed by an older man nearly a decade ago. They were understandably upset at the time, and felt affirmed when the man was prosecuted, and eventually put to death recently – they needed “closure,” they said. But through all of this, they continued to express their grief, and it seemed to have torn the family apart – the mother and father had separated, and their son had left home and had no contact with the family. And after the criminal was put to death, the mother expressed in an interview that she was still saddened and depressed. The execution had not given them the satisfaction or closure they’d wanted.

That’s because what is needed in a time of loss is not justice, not closure. They don’t need another adopted child to take their daughter’s place. What they need is a clear “goodbye,” a time when they can begin to come to terms with their loss.

The fact is – and this is the definition I want to leave us with in this series – is that GRIEF is ADJUSTING TO LOSS AND CHANGE. It’s the emotional process that happens when we experience any kind of loss that is significant enough to change our lives. Whether it’s a person we lose or something else, if that person or thing was a big enough part of our lives, we’ll have to adjust to that person or thing not being present anymore.

The adjustment might just be a practical one: If we wreck our car, we’ll have to adjust to not being able to get around as easily. But often, there will be emotions involved, too.

We might like to think of ourselves as self-dependent individuals, the fact is that none of us are. If we could see our emotional connections – both positive and negative – like little wires stretched between us, we’d see that we are connected to nearly everyone around us in some way. If we look deeper, we’d see connections to objects, too – things that are important to us: our homes, our memories, our dreams, our own talents and skills.

Some of the connections are stronger than others. Some are positive (love, compassion, friendship, loyalty) and some are negative (anger, jealousy, indifference). But whatever the strength or type of these connections, we rely on them to sustain us and help us make sense of our world.

So when one point of that connection is gone, our world is suddenly in disarray. Things are suddenly different, and will not be the same. We have to adjust to life in a world where that person or thing is no longer present. And this is true, whether our connection was positive or negative. That’s why you’ll often be surprised to find yourself grieving when someone dies who you disliked or even considered an enemy.

Hidden Griefs

What kinds of things can we lose that might cause us to grieve? We have to be able to recognize them, because they can have as powerful an effect on us sometimes as losing someone. Here are a few examples of our “hidden griefs.”

1 Material Loss – For instance, losing our home, or something we hold dear.

2 Relationship Loss – conflict with parents, friends or spouses, loss of connection with God. Note this is one kind of grief Job suffered – he lost his family and material possessions to be sure, but it quickly becomes obvious that his grief is made worse by his loss of relationship with God.

3 Functional Loss – When you break or lose a limb, losing your ability to move freely, or losing your ability to function mentally.

4 Role Loss/Change – When you get married, you can grieve being single. You might retire, but when you do you also lose whatever roles you had associated with working.

5 Change/Loss in a System – This is a change in a system in which you’re a part. If a coworker dies or leaves, your work system has changed. When you have your first child (and each child thereafter), your family system takes a radical shift. When a conflict happens at church, you can grieve the loss of security and safety you had.

Loss of a Dream

6 Loss of Dreams and Expectations – These can be things as small as getting called into work and not being able to take the day off like we’d planned, to greater and deeper expectations and dreams: Not getting a job we’d desired; not making the grade we needed to graduate or move on in school; not being able to have children.

Of all the “hidden griefs,” this last one is probably the hardest to recognize and the most powerful.

For an example, look at the passage we read this morning of Jesus’ arrest and betrayal. The whole story of Jesus’ conflict with the priests and people, and his subsequent crucifixion, is a story of lost dreams and expectations. Remember the common patterns of grief? Shock & Denial, Volatile Reactions, Disorganization and Despair, and finally Reorganization. Let’s look for these patterns together:

• Judas, one of the disciples, becomes disillusioned enough with Jesus that he is ready to turn him over to Jesus’ enemies. He was obviously expecting Jesus to be something he was not – a military messiah, for instance, who would save his people from the oppressive Roman empire. When it became clear that Jesus was not going to be that kind of savior, Judas experienced grief. Problem is, he let his grief get the best of him, and got stuck in the “volatile” stage.
• The other disciples also had their own expectations of Jesus, and We find a crucial moment for their Messianic dreams in the garden, when Judas identifies Jesus. At this point, a military messiah would have used the opportunity to rally his followers. Draw swords! To arms! Now is the moment we’ve been waiting for! But instead, Jesus reaches out his hands… and lets them put shackles on.
• Peter is no different from the others, but his volatility and despair are even deeper because he is so close to Jesus. You can see his growing discomfort with this “different Messiah” as the gospel narratives progress. At one point, he chides Jesus for saying he was going to die, earning him a sharp rebuke from Jesus. When Jesus refuses to fight – and even rebukes Peter for fighting – Peter finally comes face to face with his “lost Messiah.” He runs, and out of shock and numbness, even denies his master.
• How could a crowd change so quickly from hailing Jesus as a king on Sunday, to calling out for his death on Friday? That’s the power of lost dreams and expectations. Jesus was not the Messiah they had hoped for. Their response? “Crucify him!” Talk about a volatile reaction!

The Key: Recognition

All these ways we’ve mentioned are ways we can grieve. So how come we so often ignore that grief? Because we think of grief as something that only happens when we lose a PERSON, and we fail to recognize that grief is about losing someone or someTHING.

The only way to start on the path of healing grief is to acknowledge the loss you’ve experienced – no matter how trivial we think it might seem to others. Only then can we properly begin to say “goodbye.”

I encourage you to take a few moments now to write down some of the things you’ve grieved or are grieving. If the things we’ve talked about have stirred you, or prompted some response, maybe that’s a grieving process you need to begin. Take some time to look over that list, and make a note of some of the people or things you need to say “goodbye” to.

Concluding the Series

We’ll conclude the series this time, a week earlier than I’d planned (some of you are breathing a sigh of relief). So as we finish, here are a few other thoughts I’d collected but hadn’t had time to share. Most of these relate to grief over losing a person, but can be transposed to other types of grief as well.

Make the most of memories – Take time to share and write down your memories… both the good and the bad. Share them with others, and share the laughter and tears together. Expressing these things not only cements the memories more strongly in our spirits, but also gives us a chance to discover and say things we might have left unsaid.

Use grief as a prayer – Everyone who grieves the loss of someone or something knows those moments – some sight, smell, or sound brings a flood of memories and emotions rushing back, almost as if losing that person or thing all over again. Take a moment to fully experience those emotions – cry if you need to, but let yourself feel those emotions. Then think of what it was that reminded you of your loss, and turn it into a prayer of thanksgiving to God. For instance, if the smell of chocolate chip cookies reminds you of your grandmother because you used to make cookies together, offer a prayer of thanksgiving to God for the times you got to spend making cookies with her, and ask that you can find ways to develop similar memorable experiences with others.

Write a letter – If you find that you had a significant number of things that you didn’t get to say, try putting those things into a letter. Take the usual care you would to write a letter – make sure you say what you mean, no more and no less. You can share that letter with a friend, or simply keep it to yourself. But expressing those things will be more good for you than you realize.

Think about the future – Take some time to think about what life might be like in a few weeks or months when the grieving process is over. What’s the best possible outcome you could hope for? What kind of lessons will you have taken from the person or thing you’ve lost, and from your experience of grief?

“See You Soon” – Imagine what it will be like to see that person if heaven for the first time. How do you think he or she will look? What kinds of things will you want to say to them?

©2010 Notes From Jon. All Rights Reserved.