“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart.” Psalm 73:26
Grieve Well
Floyd made a statement in one of his messages that I listened to recently that I have been pondering over for weeks now. “If we can’t grieve well, we can’t grow well.” We have to be able to grieve the losses in our lives in order to keep growing. Without doing that, our souls won’t be “well,” and we will carry pain around with us.
Being able to grieve well means we have to be honest with ourselves and with the Lord about things we have lost. Floyd is still alive, but I have losses on this journey. I’ve lost my fellowship and friendship with Floyd. I mourn losing his leadership. I grieve that everything happened so quickly and unexpectedly without a chance to say goodbye. I am sad that I couldn’t ask him a few more questions about things. I grieved having to walk through cancer without him. The list could go on and on—so much has been lost.
Without fully understanding the process—or even the need for it—I think the Lord has helped me to grieve. I have been able to speak out to Him every thing that has been lost. I’ve poured out my sadness. I have confessed how hard some things have been. I’ve been completely honest with God about my heart. God designed us to grieve when we lose things that are precious to us. Whatever the loss is in our lives, we need to take time to grieve. And He helps us in that grieving process.
The Holy Spirit in us loves truth. When we are honest with God, the Holy Spirit is honored and responds by encouraging us, comforting us, and giving us grace and help with our pain.
If we don’t mourn what is lost, we can easily become angry, bitter, and resentful. We can blame God. We can slowly close off our hearts to Him—the One we need so we can heal and grow. And we will eventually close off our hearts to people around us. We build walls around our hearts and retreat from the pain and hard places. Grieving protects us, keeps our heart open, and helps us survive the loss.
Grieving doesn’t mean we get answers or miracles. It just means we keep our hearts receptive and tender to His love and intimacy. It means we can receive His “help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
Fear can hold us back from facing our loss and grieving. None of us like the feeling of being “exposed”—of having our hearts revealed. It feels so very vulnerable when we express our grief. There are times when I’ve written in these updates about things I’m facing—things I’m processing—and I feel raw afterwards. I feel lonely. I feel so very tender.
And yet being known—being open—is actually a protection to us. It keeps us from being isolated. It allows us to receive prayer, support, encouragement, and love from our “family.” Being open and facing our loss and grief is so worth the momentary discomfort.
No one has grieved more than God Himself. His heart has been broken over mankind. “The Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart” (Genesis 6:6).
Jesus himself “wept” when His friend Lazarus died. When He sees our suffering, He grieves with us just as He did with Mary and Martha.
But God always has a plan to bring life out of pain, goodness out of suffering. He redeems what is lost. He doesn’t “waste” any of our sorrows. I trust and believe for that on our journey.
“Lord, this journey has been painful. There have been losses and suffering. Let me learn the lesson of grieving well so I can grow well. Don’t let our journeys be setbacks, but times of pressing into the Lord and growing. We are not alone. Amen!”
Thank you. I tend to ignore my grief, buck up and move on.
Hugs to you❤️
I was just talking to my husband last night about this…I need to take some time in the near future to go away and grieve all the losses of this year, and the pain some of those losses have brought up from the past. He asked me if I wanted to take Memorial Day to go away and do that, but there are painful things coming to any end I want to wait for, so I can hopefully pour it out all at once and move on, rather than feeling like I have just taken a cheese grater to my heart only to step back into a painful situation again.
“If we don’t mourn what is lost, we can easily become angry, bitter, and resentful. We can blame God. We can slowly close off our hearts to Him—the One we need so we can heal and grow. And we will eventually close off our hearts to people around us. We build walls around our hearts and retreat from the pain and hard places. Grieving protects us, keeps our heart open, and helps us survive the loss.” This is so true, yesterday we had a family BBQ and I was surrounded by people I love, yet I was lonely and heartbroken.There were moments of joy, but the majority of the time I just wanted to be somewhere else…..God please forgive me and help me.
This is such a good word. I’m trying to find a way to archive this. It is a devotional I know I will want to read again and share with others now and in the future. Thank you so much for continuing to serve and minister to others in your grief.
So needed to hear this right now. In the past few years I have lost many who are the closest to me, those who have been my support amd encouragement throughout my life. I have allowed myself to withdraw from the only true source of comfort. Thank you for your very timely reminder and for being willing to share your own struggles.
I have had several losses of importance the last few years that I haven’t been able to ‘let loose’.. Like the tears were dried up or spent.. Not sure what it takes to get it to let go..