Staying Faithful in Grief

By now, you've waded through almost all of the basics. This section is about giving you a game plan for going forward, as well as going deeper into issues raised earlier in this book. For that reason, some of the following chapters may not be of pressing need for you, but if you have time, I'm sure you'll find more than a few fresh insights to round out your Christian understanding of things that many believers struggle with. After all, part of our mending comes through gaining ways to comfort others with the comfort we have received from God (2 Corinthians 1:4). Let these articles add to your skill set.

If you've asked the Lord to help you and guide you through your grief, then He will. This is far and away the most important thing for anyone to do, and it necessarily means that the path of your grief will not follow any set pattern. However, that doesn't mean that there won't be elements in it common to all, but that the order that He leads you through them will be unique to you. Let's begin by reviewing what those elements are. (There will be articles devoted to some of these elsewhere on the site.)

Master the Basics

1. Bring your grieving heart to God.

Stay steady at seeking to draw on Him as your Friend and Helper, not push Him away as your enemy. Do your honest best to keep turning to Him in prayer and letting Him speak to you through His Word.

2. Settle the salvation question.

Build solid confidence about your own entrance into eternity through your faith relationship with Jesus Christ. I know it seems odd to put it here, but this is key to all that follows. The Lord is our foundation. Faith, trust, and confidence in Him and in the truth of His Word are our building blocks.

3. Get hope for their future.

Grow a faith-confidence about your loved ones entrance into heaven. Being in doubt about your loved ones eternal destiny will increase the pain of grief and stymie its progress.

4. Get hope for your future in this life.

Grow a faith-confidence about the Lords ability to resurrect you from the living death of grief so that one day you will feel fully restored to a life you want to live. Faith gives us hope for a future yet unseen.

5. Clear out the contaminants.

Things like fear, doubt, unbelief, anger with God, hopelessness, self-pity, guilt, and shame are not good and need to go. They will make you feel worse, push others away from you, and keep you from honoring your loved one as well as you would if you were grieving with a pure heart.

6. Give God your tears.

Saturate your weeping with prayer and your prayers with tears. The Lord knows how to take it from there, but this is the part you must be willing to give Him. Allow the pain of grief to surface and the tears and prayers to flow freely.

7. Do the next right thing.

Allow yourself to move through the day at a slower pace, but don't give yourself time off for bad behavior. Failing to keep doing the things that you know are proper, right, and necessary will only make things worse. The path of duty is a God-given means of leading us along when we would otherwise want to give up. Pray often for Him to help you stay on this path, but don’t drive yourself too hard along it.

8. Cultivate relationships.

When a death occurs, people come flooding into our life, and we need them to. Usually, that tide turns after the first week or so, as other things call for their time and attention. We still need close times of fellowship, perhaps now more than ever, but it falls increasingly upon us to initiate them. That's okay. It may stretch you to reach out, but it's good for us to take the initiative.

9. Stay well-connected to the Lord.

He is our most important relationship. The problem here is that grief continually surfaces contaminating thoughts and feelings along with legitimate pain and sorrow. All this tends to push us away from the Lord unless we intentionally work to hold on to Him instead. Try to keep the Big Five connectors in play: Bible, prayer, worship, fellowship with, and service to others (see Staying Connected to God).

10. Find constructive things to do.

Try out things that you might like doing. Your heart needs to grow in the direction of a restored desire for life. For instance, I found that I could take pleasure in being out in nature, journaling my thoughts, and learning new things to cook. Don't use this to distract yourself from feeling pain you need to give to God with prayer and tears. Instead, let these things be tender shoots of new life emerging in between the times of heavy grief.

Just Be Faithful

These ten items won't cover everything that the Lord may lead you through, but they do cover the important basics at least so far as I understand them. The order is not important. Bring each one to a satisfactory completion or to a steady level of on-going operation. By staying faithful with these steps, the Faithful One will carry you through the grief in a way that will bring you much to your surprise out to the other side on higher ground.

Prayer

Dear Jesus, help me commit to this lifesaving process. When I started out on this pilgrimage, I had little idea how long it might take and even less hope that it might have a resolution. Now, that I am gaining a hope that one day my life could be renewed, help me tether myself to those same faithful steps that have carried me this far. I have grown to learn that You are walking with Me, leading me into a future only You can chart. I trust You to be faithful, Lord. Help me stay faithful to You.

Scripture

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 ESV