In trials, count it all joy (II) Not saying “Don’t grieve,” or "Pretend"

“How are you doing?” ‘Fine!’ Liar! Not you of course, and not me! Or is it me? How many times have I answered “good” when asked how I am, and when it was not the truth,  the whole truth,  and nothing but the truth? What's true, is that there are times I am “gooder” than at others! Of course many times “how are you” is not a question, it's more like “good morning.” On the other hand at a difficult time in my life I was asked “On a scale of one to ten, how are you?” ‘You’re in danger of getting the truth,' said I! She was, of course, asking for it. Not everybody wants to hear about our problems, but if we are to find fullness of life, we will need to find places where we can be real. I'm not talking about enabling pity parties, but finding community where there is genuine concern, where we are allowed to grieve and to get help. What I'm saying, is we need safe places where we don't feel the need stuff our feelings or pretend everything's fine when it's not, and where we can grieve healthily for our losses.

Even God grieves (Genesis 6:6), and when we have suffered loss, “we do not to grieve as those without hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13), but we do (or should) grieve. I remember the Lord giving me a word for a lady who was deeply grieving the loss of a loved one. I said “You know the depth of our grief is really about how much we loved the person. If we didn't love so much, it wouldn't be quite so painful.” To have told her she should be counting it all joy, would have been a cruel misunderstand of this command from James 1:2, and in my opinion, it would be spiritual abuse. Should Jesus have rejoiced in the garden as he contemplated His choice to go to the cross? It's true that joy was set before Him as the end result of His suffering.  But He had to endure the cross before He could come out to joy on the other side (Hebrews 12:2). In the garden His grief was so intense that He actually sweat blood (Luke 22:44).  We also need to grieve when we have sinned so that we may exhibit true repentance (Jeremiah 5:3; 2 Corinthians 7:9).

Grief is a process we can either move through in a healthy way, or we can get stuck. There are several descriptions of its stages. One of them is denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Not everybody experiences all of them, and those who do, may go through them in a different order. This is not the place to go into these things in any detail. But I do want to say that there is no shame in needing grief counseling. It's perfectly normal to grieve loss, and some of us take longer that others, to come into  life again. I find that every new loss, produce and echo of previous ones, and there's a sense in which, in this life we will not completely heal from our grief. It's kay to be struggling (Ephesians 6:12).

Father, help us to be real, to be patient with ourselves in our struggles, and to give ourselves time to grieve. Thank You there's coming a day when there'll be no more more death, grief, crying or pain, and when You will wipe away every tear in Jesus Name Amen