Clearing Out the Contaminants

Grief does not give anyone the right to give up moral responsibility or to act badly to others, or unfaithfully to our God. Many do and God understands. So do friends and family members. We are used to seeing people go through it that way. Sadly, it seems that there are many who choose to act out of their pain, rather than out of their faith. We (and God) cover it with love and sympathy. But let us be clear that what love is covering are often unnecessary, sinful reactions to pain and loss. Losing a loved one doesn't give us a free pass to act like morality and manners don't matter. Why do we?

The short answer is one we all understand. We are in pain and we want to lash out. We lost someone who gave meaning and purpose to our life, so we easily fall into don't care moments. Since a big part of our reason for showing the world that better side of ourselves is gone, we let the other side out of the cage. Some even let it off the chain. In fact, many times we can't find or feel that better side of ourselves to give it any airtime at all. What's going on? Why would losing a love make us unloving?

Jesus told us all we need to know about this strange phenomenon when He said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45). Abundance indicates that something filling the heart finally overflows its boundaries. In other words, the things that are down there want to come up and out. That's fine if they are wholesome thoughts and feelings. Not all are. In ordinary times we can manage what's down there reasonably well. We all experience undercurrents of negative thoughts and emotions that we don't give voice to or act upon, or at least try to contain.

Grief is like a bomb going off on the inside. The shock waves create a super-abundance of negative emotions, clamoring to express themselves. Just try holding them back! In fact, because of the don't care feeling, we've given up trying to stop the flood. We would find it hard and hateful to contain even the former ordinary emotions that we wouldn't or shouldn't express. These new ones are off the charts. Isn't it healthy then, to let them out? Let's look at the other side of that question first. It is definitely unhealthy to keep them in. Those emotions are crying out for attention.  It is as if our heart is saying, Will somebody please listen to me and help me with what I'm feeling before I explode? Only we don't say please, do we?

Negative Emotion Contaminants

The answer to the inward pressure isn't trying harder to push the unpleasant thoughts and feelings down. They want to come up and out, so let them. Your deepest thoughts and feeling need airing out. They need to be listened to carefully and well. Then, they need to be attended to by doing the things that will mend them and restore you to peace. My advice, however, is get to them before they get to you. If you don't deal with what's down there the right way, it will take control of your mouth, your actions, and your very life. Let them have free reign and you will hardly recognize the person you might become. These are what I have been calling the contaminants to grief and they are deadly.

Good grief draws the contaminants out so that our sorrow can flow like a crystal-clear river to God, who alone can help us with it. Leave them in and the God-given flow of grief will be blocked entirely or diverted into barren wastelands. What are the contaminants and where do they come from? By now you shouldn't be surprised to know that we have an enemy. He and his team love to muddy up the water by throwing things in that don't belong in the grief process, and then getting us to hold them in place! As always, the other side seeks to make us the unwitting perpetrators of our own misfortune.

The most frequently observed contaminants are fear, doubt, unbelief, anger with God, hopelessness, self-pity, guilt, and shame. You can't help it if they show up, but no one needs to hold on to these feelings. They have no place in a trusting and surrendered heart. They do not arise from faith or grow from the truth, but they haven't come in from outside of us. They would not even appear in our grieving if they had not already been present as secret thoughts of our hearts. The Lord knows they are there. He says He is the only one who can search these hidden depths and He does, especially during times of emotional distress. His goal is to bring these stubbornly entrenched subversives up to the surface, to help us get free of them. Darkness to Light. That's His way.

Bringing unpleasant thoughts and feelings to light is not our way. We'd rather they stay buried! Usually, we hid the worst of them so deep we hardly know that they are there. The pain and pressure of the grief push them up to the surface. We are forced eventually to recognize them, especially if they go flying out of our mouth! Recognition, however, is a very good thing, because it makes it possible for us to deal with these buried thoughts at last. Recognizing them gives us a choice whether we will get them out or let them rule over us (and others through us). While we are grieving is as good a time as any to do this kind of house cleaning. If we were honest, we might admit that no time would be the best time. But the constant irritation of the contaminants, when we're already feeling bad enough, can provide the needed motivation to show these pesky varmints the door.

The Path to Freedom

We get them out by carrying them as captives to God not by dumping them on the people around us. If we take them to Jesus and God's Word through confession, repentance, and prayer we will get free of them (2 Corinthians 10:5). If we simply act out or lash out, they will not only stay in place, they'll keep growing. That's why it's unhealthy just to blow off steam (in answer to the question raised earlier). The contaminants never leave on their own. We must intentionally show them the door.

To describe the path to freedom from each one of the contaminants would make far too long a book. The short form is this: Find a truth in God's Word that puts the lie to that contaminating thought or feeling, exposing it as false. Break your agreements with it. Then, repent to God for believing that lie from the enemy rather than His truth (By the way, He's not mad about this: He knows you were deceived). Receive the Lords forgiveness and begin confessing that liberating truth from Gods Word as the truth you've chosen to live by.

Eventually, your feelings will shift. Emotions spring to life out of what we believe in the hidden depths of our hearts. Changing the believing allows for new emotions to begin growing. This takes time of course. In the meantime, keep weeding out the old, false beliefs as quickly as they appear, so the negative emotions will have less ground to grow upon.

Worth All the Work

In the light of Christ, we see the contaminates as the fallen, sin-darkened things that they really are. Until we want God more than the contaminates, we will make room for them, excuses for them, allowances for them. But once we begin to want God and His peace again, we know intuitively (by the Spirit) that we will have to let them go. This is a hard choice to make at first because it is a costly choice in the middle of something that is already causing us great pain. We have been robbed of someone we didn't want to live without! We want to be comforted, but to get the best comfort, it may take facing some very uncomfortable things we would rather not deal with.

If we've come to our senses, however, we will remember that God is the source of all comfort. That truth helps us become willing to tear down any wall in our heart that would separate us from Him during such a time of intense pain and loss. Trust me, my friend, clearing out the contaminants is worth all the effort. It not only clears the way for the grief to flow as it should, but it also clears your heart to live much more freely in the future. The truth is these contaminants often contaminate ordinary life, too.

To get radically free of the thoughts, feelings, and memories that so easily contaminate our emotional life you may want to take our free eCourse on Emotional Healing at healingstreamsusa.org or buy it as The Missing Peace in paperback or eBook at Amazon. If the Peace of Christ has gone missing from your daily life, this book will help you learn many ways of getting it back.

Prayer

Dear Lord, I had no idea how contaminated my emotions could become, but thank God, You're not holding any of this against me. You just want me to bring every unhelpful and unhealthy emotional reaction to You. By carrying it as a captive to You and Your truth, You can replace it with something better, something from You. I really don't want to keep feeling any of these things anyway! Forgive me for holding on to of fear, doubt, unbelief, anger with God, hopelessness, self-pity, guilt or shame! Help me get free of it now. I repent of agreeing with the thoughts that trigger those harmful feelings and the attitudes that hold them in place. Show me Your truths that counteract them and help me cast out all false beliefs so that my heart can truly abide in You.

Scripture

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Why do you call me Lord, and not do what I tell you? Luke 6:45-46

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

All scripture citations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.