Healthy Grief for Christian Maturity and Compassion

“Dad was never there emotionally, he always seemed preoccupied. We didn’t do fun things together. He was so often intense, demanding, even critical. I wish we could have just hung out.” This example represents a real loss and requires healthy grief for Christian maturity and compassion.

When I begin working with a person in Prayer Ministry there are normally things that bother the person, ways they are triggered by others, ways life pushes their buttons. After awhile, when we get all those resolved, we come to an interesting place. The person is much more differentiated, and no longer easily triggered by the actions of other’s. However, passion for life is not necessarily restored.

Usually the last thing that comes up is grief and loss. Forgiveness has happened, lies have been displaced, yet, there is a loss. God made little boys and girls to need their fathers as available, engaged, safe, and fun. Releasing this loss is where deep connection is restored. The person is finally ready to move on to actively receive fathering from God and to live in community with others.

“Many have taken on our culture’s pain-denying view of grieving. Perhaps the most popular way in our culture of not paying attention to our losses and pain is by medicating ourselves through an addiction. People use work, TV, drugs, alcohol, shopping or food binges, busyness, sexual escapades, unhealthy relational attachments, even serving others at church incessantly – anything to medicate the pain of life.”

But grieving is part of our humanity, even as Jesus displayed it with the death of Lazarus. There are even many benefits from grieving. Here are a list of some from The Emotionally Healthy Church (p.168). Take some time to ponder these.

Benefits of Grieving:

• We become compassionate as our Father in heaven is compassionate. Henri Nouwen rightly says grief is the way to compassion. There is no compassion without many tears… To become like the Father whose only authority is compassion, I have to shed countless tears and so prepare my heart to receive anyone, whatever their journey has been, and forgive them from the heart. Absorbing our own pain, we learn to forgive.
• We have a greater concern for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the marginalized, and the wounded. We understand them.
• We are less covetous, less idolatrous. We rarely say, “I’ve got to have this or I’ll die.” Life is stripped of its pretense and nonessentials. We are more apt to rid ourselves of the unimportant things in life others so desperately want – power, control, money, or approval.
• We are liberated from having to impress others. We can follow God’s plan with a new freedom because we are not as motivated to please people.
• We are able to live more comfortably with mystery when it comes to God and His plans. We are not afraid to say, “I don’t know,” when people ask us questions about God. We become much more flexible regarding God’s intentions for our lives.
• We are characterized by a greater humility and vulnerability.
• We place God at the center of our lives and begin rejecting superficial, trivial pursuits.
• We experience an enhanced sense of living in the immediate present rather than postponing life until retirement. We easily now rearrange life’s priorities to be with our spouse (if  applicable) and friends.
• We enjoy a new vivid appreciation of the basic facts of life – the changing seasons, the wind, the falling of the leaves, the last Christmas, people made in God’s image.
• We have fewer fears and a greater willingness to take risks.
• We are kinder. A love flows out of us that is not based on people’s intelligence, success, money, appearance, or expressions of love for us. People no longer feel evaluated, judged, or analyzed by us. They do not feel controlled.
• We understand that what bonds us as followers of Jesus living in community is our brokenness.
• We sense the reality of heaven in a new way, understanding more fully that we are only aliens and sojourners on earth.
• We are finally at home with ourselves and with God.

Scazzero P. (2003). The Emotionally Healthy Church. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.