Jesus wept. ~ John 11:35
As I sit at my kitchen table staring out the window, it is a dreary morning here in Andrews, SC. It has been raining, the clouds are still dark and gray, and there is a constant drip from the roof corner that reminds me of the tears shed, a few of my own, but many for some close friends and maybe some of you.
Last night before our church’s Christmas gathering (we call them family night suppers), I received a telephone call from my mom and confirmation from some of my friends that a close friend, a dear lady who loved Christ, was called home by the Lord. A sudden heart attack and, just like that, she passed into glory. Shocking is an understatement. We are not spring chickens, but we are not old at forty-eight. Most of us are only beginning to deal with the beginning stages of age-dom—eyeglasses, arthritis, and such. However, after a flood of memories, some texting with one of her best friends and her husband, here I am. I am reflecting, thinking, grieving—and grief that comes on the heels of another childhood friend gone too soon by an automobile accident within a couple of weeks.
You may wonder why I write a personal blog post about grief at such a festive time of year. After all, more than any other season, Christmas should cause everyone to be joyful and triumphant. However, that is not true. Holidays are difficult for those who have experienced loss, and the first holidays without the loved one are extremely hard. I still feel the pain of that first Christmas after my mother passed away when I was nine. I agree with Henri J.M. Nouwen when he reminds us, “If there is any posture that disturbs a suffering man or woman, it is aloofness.” The last thing our friends and family need is for us to be aloof. Now more than any other time, they need to know our presence and care. Nouwen continues, “The tragedy of Christian ministry is that many who are in great need, many who seek an attentive ear, a word of support, a forgiving embrace, a firm hand, a tender smile, or even a stuttering confession of inability to do more, often find their ministers [and I would add friends and coworkers] distant men [and women] who do not want to burn their fingers.”
Another misconception about grief that I want to address is that you or our friends must work through the “stages of grief,” even though it might be hard at Christmas or their love-be-gone’s birthday or seeing their favorite ice-cream flavor, etc. Friends, “stages of grief” is a misapplication of Elisabeth-Kübler Ross’s “behavioral phenomenon” found in her book, On Death and Dying.[1] Her five stages can be summarized as follows:
- Denial: “This cannot be happening to me.” “I refuse to believe this!” This is a normal, initial response to a crisis.
- Anger: The individual is no longer denying the incident, but rather expressing anger about it. Why? Why? Why?
- Bargaining: “God, if you will do this, I will do that.”
- Depression: The unhappy realization sets in that nothing can be done about what has already happened.
- Acceptance: The person realizes that his or her response to the incident is profoundly essential.[2]
This sounds good, right? We can look at a friend struggling with loss and place checkmarks. “O, be sensitive to Janie; she is in the anger stage.” However, the problem is that Kübler-Ross did not observe these stages in family members experiencing loss. She regarded them as possible stages of the dying person she was treating as a medical doctor in the hospital. The focus of her book was to help doctors and nurses have a more compassionate and understanding bedside manner for their patients. So, let me repeat that there are no “stages of grief.” The Grief Recovery Institute states, “Any attempt to codify those actions into a simplistic set of emotions is dangerous and limiting to the griever.[3]
As I sit here working through memories and grieving my friend’s passing, I might point to the anger stage because my friend should not have died so soon. Or, because we texted each other not too long ago about Lisa and I meeting up with her and her husband for lunch or dinner since we live closer now, I might be angry we will not get to do so because of—well—life. However, would anger be proper? And if it is, what happens if I get stuck in anger during the sequence pattern? This is only one problem with the “stages of grief” theory. There are others, but I will not get into them now. I only want to suggest a biblical way to understand and manage a loss—a reminder for myself and others.
My mentor, professor, and friend, Dr. Howard A. Eyrich, wrote a gem of a pamphlet on this topic that I return to again called Grief: Learning to Live with Loss.[4] Within the little book, Eyrich reminds us that “Christians are all too often not satisfied with the solace and comfort offered in the Word of God.” The world cannot help us, and we cannot just will ourselves through some checklist. Instead, God’s Word teaches us that there are three broad dimensions to grief. We must note that Eyrich did not say “stages” but dimensions. Here is what he means.
The three dimensions are disorganization<—>acceptance<—>reorganization.
- Disorganization—A relationship is deconstructed. The orderliness of life is distorted. There is often an infusion of entangled responsibilities. (see John 11:21-46)
- Acceptance—There is the realization that life will never be the same again, coupled with a willingness to engage the new frontiers of life. (see Luke 24:13-35)
- Reorganization—The individual will choose to honor God, others, and self by reconstructing relationships, life structures, and responsibilities. (see Acts 1:12-26)
Please note the double arrows I use instead of steps or stages. The world will tell us, “okay, you feel a certain way because you are in the depression stage.” Or it might be lovingly cold-hearted and say, “Okay, you’ve been in the depression stage long enough. It’s time to move on.” Yeah, right. Try telling that to a mother who lost a child. That kind of statement is grounds for getting socked on the nose.
The Bible teaches us that grieving over a loss, especially the loss of a loved one, has many dynamics that impact the time factor, emotions, and understanding. Grief does not allow us to pass from one stage to another so simply, and when we reach “acceptance,” we are done, “okay, grieving over, move on with life.” Anyone who has experienced a profound loss knows that is not the case. We grieve years after the passing. Next year my mother will be dead forty years—forty—and I still grieve. I do not have to deal with acceptance anymore because so much time has passed, but I still go back and forth between disorganization and reorganization at times.
No, grief does not pass through stages. Instead, it is fluid. It vacillates between dimensions. In one moment, we are disorganized, “What am I going to do without her?” Then in another moment, we are reorganizing, “I need to learn how to pay these bills,” or “I need to reach out to my child and rebuild our strained relationship.” In one moment, we accept, “Okay, I can do this.” However, another disorganizing issue pops up, and we are back to being unaccepting, “I cannot believe he left me by myself to deal with this.”
Finally, it is prudent to understand that God is at the center of grief’s dimensional fluidity. Our relationship with our loving heavenly Father continues to remind us of His promise of hope of resurrection and life eternal with Him (1 John 3:2). God’s Word educes us that our loved one is with Him. We are the ones absent (1 Cor. 5:6). And we do not grieve as the rest of the world does (1 Thess. 4:13), for our eyes are on Jesus (Heb. 12:2). When we recognize grief the way the Bible teaches, then we can realize the heavenly comfort and biblical understanding that God desires for us about our experience of loss.
[1] Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families (Scribner: Reissue Edition, August 12, 2014).
[2] Dr. Howard A Eyrich, Grief: Learning to Live with Loss (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2010), 28.
[3] Article 1 at grief.net and Article 2 at grief.net. Both were accessed on 12/15/2022 at 10:30 AM.
[4] Ibid., Eyrich, 30-31.
Andrews PCA 